by Greg Chapman
Stephanie turned away from him.
“Can I see him…before I—?”
Stephanie shook her head. Thomas gripped Gavenko by his shoulder.
“Gavenko—your choice!” he said.
The King nodded once more and wiped the tears from his face.
“I’m yours then…do what you want with me—but please, make it quick.”
Niles Harper pressed the barrel of his pistol into Vorn’s forehead and tried to find a reason not to pull the trigger.
“You fucking useless bastard!” he said, the sound of the battle behind him accentuating his rage.
“It’s hardly my fault, Niles! There were simply too many of Nero’s kind—”
Niles raised his hand contemplating pistol-whipping the occultist into submission, but he relented.
“Shut up!” he said. “Wake him up—get him moving—I need that damn flesh!”
Vorn was horrified. “Mr Colton is dead Niles—you saw what happened!”
“Then bring him back to life—reanimate his fucking corpse—I don’t care, just do something!”
“Even if I could do that Niles—which I can’t—I’d have to be next to him to perform such a spell—”
“Arrgh fuck!” Niles ran a hand through his hair and rested the pistol on his forehead in a bid to temper his anger.
“Niles I am truly sorry, but I think it’s best that we abandon this mission—”
Niles pointed the gun at Vorn’s face. “No, it’s not over yet! I’m going to go out there and get what’s mine!”
“Niles don’t—you’ll end up like Mr Colton—”
“Well, I can’t expect you to do it can I?”
Vorn scowled at Niles as he hauled his backpack over his shoulders and took a swig of water from a canteen.
“You’re just going to walk out there then?” Vorn asked.
“Straight into the lion’s den!” Niles said with a maniacal chuckle. Then he pointed the gun at Vorn once more. “And you’re going to make sure I don’t get snuffed out like Colton—right?”
Vorn paused, contemplating and Niles noticed his hesitation.
“So you don’t want the book then?” Niles said.
“What? Yes! Yes, I do! I was just going over your protection spell in my head.”
Niles looked Vorn over cautiously. “Well, I’m going to go out there, find Colton, grab the flesh and come straight back, got it? You just put a force field around me, or whatever—just don’t fuck it up!”
Before Vorn could argue—give Niles one last chance to escape—the mogul was gone, running low towards the battlefield. The occultist watched his figure fade into the swathe of grey dust and smiled, evil creeping into his heart for the first time in a long time—and it felt wondrous.
Thomas dragged Gavenko across the floor to the Sederunt gates, like he was a disobedient hound about to be flogged.
“Wait—I thought you weren’t going to take me out there!” the King cried. “I made my choice—to give myself to you!”
Thomas scooped Gavenko up and slammed his body into the stone doors.
“Yes, you did give yourself to me, Gavenko. You made your choice to let me have you, but you need to see the destruction you have wrought upon my kingdom!”
“No, please—”
“Open the doors!”
Gavenko turned and with shaking hands, released the latch to open the gates. Inside the stone, great cogs turned, twisting a massive stone bolt two metres in diameter. It rolled back from its resting place and the gates began to roll open with a deep, grinding bellow.
The King stared through the gap between the doors, watched it expand wider and wider, like a maw keen to devour his terror. Gavenko lurched back with a start at the sight of the battle: Skiift beasts, in their hundreds, flailed about, bleeding and succumbing to the fury of just a few Stygma monks. If the acts they were performing hadn’t been so brutal and precise, the sight of the soul threads dancing about in the dark might have been considered beautiful.
Thomas pushed Gavenko through the gates, the King almost falling down. At his feet lay the bodies of about fifty Phagun warriors, their black blood turning the grey dust to sludge. He struggled to raise his head to the carnage and found just a handful of Phagun soldiers fighting valiantly against the tide of war.
“They’re all being slaughtered!” Gavenko said.
“This shouldn’t be new to you, great King,” Thomas said.
The King detected the shift in the tone of Thomas’ voice. “Braegan?”
Thomas nodded. “You’ve seen other battles—not as great as this one—but you’ve seen war, I know that. The only difference between those wars and this one is that you’ve watched them from afar. Not this time though, My Lord—the Great One has made certain of that.”
“Please Braegan I can’t bear to watch this—”
“Oh, but it’s okay to watch my execution though—okay to order my destruction—and your own daughter’s?”
Gavenko bowed his head in shame, his tears falling onto the pool of Phagun blood.
“I’m sorry,” he moaned. “I said I was sorry.”
“Well, My Lord, I’m sorry too because it’s too late for that now,” Thomas said.
Thomas walked to Gavenko and grabbed him by his tunic. The King struggled with him, but Thomas simply dragged him toward the battlefield with little effort. Plumes of grey dust followed the pair like wraiths—the souls of Gavenko’s lost men.
“Please don’t!” the King cried squeezing his eyes shut to block out the horrible cataclysm befalling the Flesher Kingdom. But there was no keeping out the sound of it, the crushing, screaming weight of it on his ears.
“It’s time, Gavenko,” Thomas said with his own voice this time. “It’s time for you to make the ultimate sacrifice.”
35
Shal-Ekh’s body was battered and broken, his soul thread fraying. His opponent Re-Kul, fared no better, condemned to the ground with broken wings, dragging his bulk on maimed spider legs and paralysed tentacles.
Both were at death’s door, yet neither would relent. Their armies were wading in their own blood, the very passage they fought in now a lake of it. The corpses of the Skiift beasts were relics to the battle to end all battles, talons and antennae clutching at the sky, seeking grace from the Great One—but there would be no grace from Okin this day.
Shal-Ekh and Re-Kul were locked together in combat, claw-to-claw, when the pair saw Thomas walking toward the battlefield, dragging a screaming Gavenko along behind him. The two leaders were suddenly mesmerised by the sight of Thomas’ power, raw and pulsing with his every step. Shal-Ekh slackened his grip on Re-Kul and spoke, his voice harsh and breathless:
“He is the Great One!”
Re-Kul turned his raven eyes to the figure and squawked defiantly:
“No, it cannot be!”
“It is! Look into his heart!” the prophet said, his mind now focussing on the impostor, who had suddenly become the most important Flesher in all of Okin’s creations.
Re-Kul shifted his body, half-hobbling, half-crawling on his wounded appendages. Slowly the Skiift leader began to shrink, inch by inch, his black feathers sliding back under the surface of the scales, the maimed legs folding back on themselves. Shal-Ekh too withdrew, his soul slinking back into his shell, the ivory flesh recoiling up like a Venus-fly trap to seal his life essence back in its resting place.
The other Skiift, seeing their leader return to his red flesh form, in turn, transformed themselves back to their humanoid figures. The Stygma monks, seeking guidance from their prophet, followed suit and retracted their soul threads one by one back into their robed bodies.
The silence, the forced cessation of battle, was deafening, but moment by moment, the scrape of Thomas’ shoes in the dust and the whimpers of his captive, became the centre of the armies’ attentions.
Thomas walked between the carcasses of half a dozen Skiift creatures, there was such sadness in his eyes. Gavenko’s gaze however, only displaye
d disbelief and terror. The King’s own men, Phagun warriors, who had pledged to protect him, dared not run to the King’s aid. They could sense the extent of Thomas’ power, they couldn’t comprehend its scope, but they knew that whoever held power over the leader of the Skin-Eaters, must have been leader over all.
Shal-Ekh, huddled inside his dark robes, walked wearily toward Thomas. Re-Kul, uncertain, kept his distance. Thomas halted before the armies, ever-clutching the tunic of his King.
“Hello everyone,” Thomas said—and Shal-Ekh could hear that it was Thomas—he could see it in him, heart and soul.
No one spoke—all they could do was stare at him. Many Skiift were wounded, others lay dying, but none could resist the compulsion to look upon Thomas with quiet awe.
Thomas scanned the army of monks, then the Skiift and finally the Phagus. He felt words flow from within, passing out of the urge in a wave, desperate to escape his lips and be heard. He half-expected to hear Okin’s voice, like before, but no, it was his turn to speak now.
“Look at you all,” he said, staring at the blood on their flesh, the loss in their eyes. “Do any of you know why you here?”
The question sounded strange and many of them, Skiift and Phagus alike, looked to each other, confusion on their faces.
“For a long time, that same question flew around in my head,” Thomas continued. “I guess I was having what humans call…an identity crisis. I just thought I was this horrible creature that ate flesh—then I met Stephanie and I realized I wasn’t alone. By coincidence I ended up here in the Phagun city and I saw nothing to convince me that my belief I was a monster was anything but wrong.” He turned to Gavenko. “I saw that my kind behaved like monsters and I was disappointed, to say the least. I never wanted to be a monster, but there was little I could do to change that, or so I thought at the time.”
Gavenko stopped struggling and Thomas released him, the King dropping his face into the dust to muffle his cries.
“Then I met Re-Kul,” Thomas shot a glance at the Skiift leader. “He was a monster too, even more so than me and he was just as downcast and self-pitying as I was. But like me, he wanted to change, he wanted his world to be different—the only problem was that he chose the wrong way to go about it.”
Re-Kul motioned to make a protest, but Thomas held up his hands. “Just wait, hear me out.”
The Skiift leader held his tongue, choosing to remain calm and listen to the impostor’s words, words that seemed to touch upon his soul.
“Then there was Shal-Ekh,” Thomas turned to the prophet. “He opened my eyes and put me on the path where I would eventually discover that I was more man than beast. He may have spoken a little too much in riddle and rhyme, but he prepared me very well for Okin’s test.”
Every Flesher seemed to sway at the mention of Okin’s name, the Skiift and Phagun warriors all wearing expressions of disorientation or confusion. The monks were the only exceptions to the rule, all of them knowing full well the journey Thomas had taken.
“So I used to think I was a monster all alone in the world, but I was wrong. I had a purpose and I just had to see it.” Thomas gestured to them all. “You all have a purpose too, but this isn’t it. This isn’t what Okin wanted for you. He never wanted you to hate each other, kill each other. He only wanted you to live as one people.”
The Fleshers heard Thomas’ words and gazed shamefully at all the devastation they had inflicted upon each other.
“So are we just supposed to put down our weapons and live together in harmony?” Re-Kul said startling them all.
“You can choose to do that yes,” Thomas replied.
“Choose? I thought you were here to make us change?”
Thomas shook his head and crossed the dust to Re-Kul. The Skiift leader could see so much peacefulness in the young Phagun’s eyes. For once, he couldn’t find it so easy to hate a Skin-Eater.
“You’ve made choices Re-Kul, all your long life. You chose to try and prevent every battle, only to fail. You chose to wait instead of act, only finding courage when Okin planted a dream in your head. You chose to accept your hate and come here to use it as a weapon, but all your choices—like Gavenko’s—were wrong.”
Re-Kul’s emerald-green eyes went wide. “How do you know all of this?”
‘I told you—I didn’t know what I was, but now I understand, and I know everything there is to know about you—all of you—because Okin made it so.”
Re-Kul stormed towards him. “You cannot expect me to believe this, that you’re Okin! Okin abandoned us!”
Thomas smiled. “You sound like Gavenko. He had to be shown the hard way too—kicking and screaming—before he made his choice.”
Re-Kul gave the King a look of callous disdain. “And what choice did this fool make?”
“He chose to follow me—to surrender himself to me.”
Re-Kul’s brow rose. “He surrendered?”
“Believe it or not, he did.”
“But he always took the coward’s way out!”
Thomas put a hand on Re-Kul’s shoulder. “He was misguided, like you, blinded by hatred.”
“But how can we be together? Look at the Lepers!”
As if Re-Kul had summoned them, the Lepers suddenly appeared from out of the throng of soldiers, the Stygma and Skiift keeping well back, so as not to touch them. The rotten figures lurched towards Thomas, their sunken eyes only on him.
“That’s just your hatred talking again, Re-Kul,” Thomas said. “I used to be like you, I hated what I was, until Okin showed me my soul and its true purpose.”
“Then if we aren’t to fight—if we are to surrender to you—what happens then?”
Thomas took his hand off Re-Kul’s shoulder, a dark glimmer in his gaze. “You die.”
Cries rang out amongst the Skiift and Phagus, their fears heightened at the thought of losing their leaders. Some of the Skiift tried to take their forms again, to restart the conflict, but Thomas placated them once more.
“Listen to me, listen. I’ve seen what Okin has planned for us and it’s…incredible! You’ll all be reborn—as one—not Phagus or Skiift or Stygma, but as Flesher! You’ve got to believe me when I tell you it’s the truth!”
There was snarling and cursing, and Re-Kul’s chest began to heave with rage.
“You expect us to take your word for it—you think we’ll just give our lives to you? We’ll only die fighting for what’s really ours! Okin neglected us for millennia—where was he when the Lepers were born? Where was he when the Phagus drove us into the Forest? You talk of hatred and indifference and discrimination, but what about his indifference? He has only ever spoken to them!” Re-Kul pointed to Shal-Ekh and his monks. “Why didn’t he ever talk to us?”
Thomas approached the prophet, a wide smile of gratitude on his face. “Shal-Ekh was the only one who wanted to listen,” he said. “He and his people were the only tribe who sought Okin out and saw what he had to say as important.”
This silenced Re-Kul and his Skiift, their furious gazes tempered.
“So what will you all do for Okin? Will you give yourselves to him—give up your flesh to him like I did?”
“But you had nothing to start with—we’ve had centuries of civilisation,” Re-Kul argued.
Thomas frowned. “A civilisation forged by war—and the last time I checked civilisations can change—just look at the humans. Yes, they have hatred and pain and death, but they have changed thousands of times—a lot more than you Fleshers have ever even tried.”
Re-Kul gritted his teeth, despising the fact the impostor Thomas seemed to have an answer for every doubt in his mind. Yet it wasn’t proof that he was who he claimed to be.
“If we agree to surrender will Okin appear to us?” Re-Kul said.
Shal-Ekh spoke, his chant-like voice suddenly sounding out for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.
“Don’t you see Re-Kul? He is Okin.”
Re-Kul scowled. “Impossible.”
Stephanie watched through the Sederunt gates, praying Thomas’ words alone could save her kingdom. Of course, she knew Re-Kul would be hard to convince, she recalled how difficult it had been for her to make him trust her, but Thomas was the herald for Okin—surely that would be reason enough to surrender?
She watched Re-Kul’s tall red figure, pacing and arguing, his stubbornness at its height now. Shal-Ekh, who always knew this day would come, stood silent—why speak when his choice was already made? Thomas, or Okin, or Braegan was forever patient, providing answers whenever questions were raised, but when would he finally act and end the war once and for all? How much longer did she have to wait to be free?
As she watched Thomas, she remembered the dream she’d had all those months ago—the dream that urged her to venture back into the human city. The dream came to her as she slept one night in the Forest of the Skiift alongside Braegan’s grave. It was almost as if her dead lover had reached out to her. She recalled seeing the human city in the dream, the city from above, its bedazzled streets veins in a pulsing black heart. Her mind’s eye dove down into that city, down and into the streets, until she came to a street named Harrison Boulevarde.
There, in number 6939, apartment 201, she was shown a man, a younger Thomas—younger not in age, but in spirit. She saw immediately that he was Phagun, but he was cut off from that world. She realized when she awoke that Okin was telling her to go to Thomas—that Okin had plans for them both.
Little did she know his plans included her giving birth to a child.
Stephanie wrenched herself away from the debate being played out in the battlefield and ran, hoping she wouldn’t be too late. She ran across the court, past the Sederunt flame, down a long corridor and through a silent passage—a crack in the stone. She’d followed the same route once before, but this time there was no rebellion in her heart. That was up to Thomas now.
The passage took her into the Phagun city, which was darkened, apart from a few caves where light still lingered. Stephanie imagined the caves’ inhabitants cowering inside, the terrible tremors of war plaguing their minds. She imagined two very particular Phaguns would be among them, sharing the same trepidation—two Phaguns she had trusted all her secret life. She ran to the entrance to their cave and called to them with a whisper.