by Samuel Sykes
“Would you call me stupid less?”
“No. But I might feel a little less good about it.”
Lenk opened his mouth to retort when his eyes suddenly went wide, sweeping over the sea.
“Where’s Kataria?”
The first answer came with an uncaring roll of Gariath’s broad shoulders.
The second, slightly more helpful answer came from the bubbles rising up beside the landing. A sopping mess of golden hair, frazzled feathers and sputtering gasps emerged moments later. With some difficulty, it made its way over to the landing and hooked an arm onto the stone. It looked up at them, the only thing visible through the mess of wet straw being an angry, canine-bared snarl.
“Help me, you idiots,” Kataria snapped. “I didn’t go back to get your stupid supplies so I could die for them.”
She seemed less than annoyed when Gariath took her by the arms and hauled her effortlessly from the water, callously dropping her and the stuff she carried to the landing. Steel rattled upon stone, a blade sliding away from her to rest at Lenk’s feet like a waiting puppy.
“You …” he whispered, reaching down to take it by the hilt with a slightly unnerving gentleness, “went back for my sword.”
“You’re useless without it,” she muttered. She rose up, kicked a sopping leather satchel toward him. “And these are useless without you.”
“The small bag?”
“It looked important.”
“There’s no food in it,” he said, looking at her askew. “There’s nothing in them.”
Except my journal, he thought.
She stared at him intently, as though she could stare past his befuddled eyes and into his thoughts. She snorted, pulling wet hair behind her head and callously wringing it out.
“Important to someone, then,” she said.
“Right,” he said, voice fading on a breeze that wasn’t there.
It wasn’t lost on her, though; her long ears, three ragged notches to a length, twitched with an anxious fervor, swallowing his voice. Her entire body seemed to follow suit, the sinew of her arms flexing as she twisted her hair out, naked abdomen tensing, sending droplets of salt dancing down the shallow contours of her muscle to disappear in the water-slick cling of her breeches.
And amidst all the motion of her body, only her eyes remained still, fixated. On him.
Absently, he wondered if it was telling that he only seemed to notice her in such a way before or after a near death experience.
“Stairs.”
He startled at the sound; Gariath’s voice felt something rough and coarse on his ears. Almost as rough and coarse as his claws felt wrapped around his neck. The dragonman hoisted him up, turned him around sharply to face them: a narrow set of steps, worn by salt and storm, spiraling up around the pillar of rock.
“Right,” Lenk whispered, shouldering sword and satchel alike, “stairs.”
Nothing more need be said; no one needed a reason to get farther away from the water. The mist thinned as they followed it to the top, though not by much. When feet were set upon the smooth, hewn tableau of the pillar, it was still thick enough to strangle the sun, if not banish it entirely.
Perhaps the light was just enough to let them see it clearly. Perhaps there was no mist thick enough to smother it entirely from view. But in the distance, still vast, still dark, loomed an imposing shape.
“Jaga,” Lenk whispered, as though speaking the name louder might draw its attention.
“It doesn’t look like an island,” Kataria said, squinting into the gloom. “Not like any I’ve seen, anyway.” She shrugged. “Then again, I’ve never seen an island with a walkway leading conveniently to it.”
True enough, there it was. However narrow and however precarious, a walkway of stone stretched from the end of the pillar into the mist toward the distant island.
“I’ve never heard of a giant rock that had such a neat and tidy top,” Lenk replied, tapping his feet upon the hewn tableau. “Nor ones with naturally-occurring staircases, either. Not that it wasn’t nice of them, but why would the Shen carve any of this?”
“They didn’t.”
There was an edge in Gariath’s voice, less coarse and more jagged, as though he took offense at the insinuation. As Lenk turned about, met the dragonman’s black, narrow glare, he felt considerable credence lent to the theory.
“And how do you know?” the young man asked.
“Because I do,” Gariath growled.
“He knows them,” the voice whispered, gnawing at the back of Lenk’s skull, “because he is them. Your enemy.”
“Well, he would know, wouldn’t he?” Kataria muttered. “Ask a question of reptiles, get an answer from a reptile.”
“He betrayed you once for them.”
Lenk shook his head, tried to ignore the voice, the growing pain at the base of his head.
“The Shen wouldn’t build this,” Gariath said, “because they are Shen.”
“What?” Kataria asked, face screwing up.
“He doesn’t even bother to lie to you.”
“If you don’t know, then you don’t need to know. They didn’t build this. Do not accuse them of it.”
“He defends them.”
“Why?” Lenk suddenly blurted out, aware of both of their stares upon him. “Why are you defending them?”
“He is one of them.”
“How do you know so much about them?” Lenk asked, taking a step toward the dragonman. “What else do you know about them?”
“He will kill you, for them.”
“Why did you even come?”
“You were going to die without me,” Gariath replied.
“And? That’s never swayed you before. But you wanted to come this time, you wanted to see the Shen. You haven’t stopped talking about them, since—” The words came out of his mouth, forced and sharp, as though he were spitting blades. “Since you abandoned us to go chase them.”
One didn’t need to be particularly observant to note the tension rippling between them; that much would have been obvious by the clenching of Gariath’s fists as he took a challenging step forward.
“Consider carefully,” he said, low and threatening, “what you’re accusing me of.”
“Betrayal,” Lenk replied.
“And that forbids someone from coming?” He cast a sidelong scowl to Kataria. “You chose poor company.”
Lenk caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. Shock was painted across the shict’s face, fear was there, too, each in such great coating as to nearly mask the expression of hurt. Nearly, but not entirely, and not nearly enough to draw attention away from the fact that she did not refute, contradict, or even insult the dragonman.
It hurt, too, when Kataria turned her gaze away from him.
“Not about her,” the voice whispered. “Not yet.”
“This isn’t about her,” Lenk said, turning his attentions back to the dragonman. “This is about you and what you came for. Us … or the Shen?”
Gariath’s earfrills fanned out threateningly. His gaze narrowed sharply as he leaned forward. Lenk did not back down, did not flinch as the dragonman snorted and sent a wave of hot breath roiling across his face.
“Always,” Gariath said, “it has always been for—”
The mist split apart with the sound of thunder and the gnash of jaws. Teeth came flying out of nothingness, denying man and dragonman a chance to do anything before they came down in a crash. A shock ripped through Lenk, sent him crashing to the earth, and when he found enough sense to look, Gariath was gone.
Not far, though.
Roar clashed against roar, howl ground against howl as the Akaneed pulled its great head back from the pillar and whipped its head about violently, trying to silence the writhing red body in its jaws. Gariath had no intention of doing such, no intention of a silent resignation to teeth and tongue.
And no choice in the matter.
The fight came to a sudden halt and Lenk looked up, hel
plessly, as Gariath squatted between the jaws. His muscles strained, arms against the roof of the beast’s mouth, feet wedged between its lower teeth, body trembling with the effort as he tried to keep the creature’s cavernous maw from snapping shut.
A moment, and everything went still. Gariath’s body ceased to quake. The Akaneed’s jaws grew solid and strong. The dragonman stared down from between rows of unmoving teeth and said something.
Then they snapped shut and he disappeared.
A single moment spared to cast a low, burbling keen down upon the two piddling creatures upon the pillar. A low groaning sound as it fell on its side, crashed into the ocean with an angry wave. A fading sound of froth hissing into nothingness upon the sea.
And Gariath was gone.
Lenk looked to Kataria. Kataria looked to Lenk. Neither had the expression, the words to fit what they had just seen.
And still, they tried.
“Do we …” Kataria asked, the words lingering into meaninglessness.
“How?” Lenk asked, the question hanging between them like something hard and iron.
And it continued to hang there, solid as the rock they did not move from, thick as the mist that closed in around them, unfathomable as the sea gently lapping against the stone.
NINE
SHE KEEPS HER PROMISES
The water was warm. Too warm, he thought as it lapped up against his ankles. It was too warm for the season. It should not be this warm.
And at that moment, he did not care that it was warm.
He looked down at his legs, ghastly white and sickly, the faintest hint of webs between his toes, as though they had started growing and lost interest later. His eyes drifted to the legs beside him, limber and tan, healthy, all the little brown toes wriggling as they kicked gentle waves in the water.
It hurt him to think that his legs had once been so healthy, to think that they might still have been if not for the circumstances that had arisen years ago. But it hurt less to look at those healthy legs than to look into her eyes.
And it hurt more to hear her speak.
“So,” Kasla said, voice too soft, “what happened?”
A question he had asked himself every breath for the past twelve hours. He had been searching for an answer for at least as long.
At first, he looked for something that would make her understand, make her realize it wasn’t his fault, make her realize it was the Gods’ fault. But that one rang hollow.
Then he looked for something that would take all the blame, something that would make her feel pity for him, make her realize he was a man driven to what he did, not a man accustomed to making choices. But that one tasted foul on his tongue.
Then, he just hoped to find one that would let her look him in the eyes again.
And now that she asked, he gave up on that, too.
“I didn’t think anyone heard me,” he said, staring down at his feet. “I called out so many times and no one ever answered. I didn’t think there was any harm in just … doing it more.” He closed his eyes, felt the warmth lap around his ankles. “I started talking … to no one, when I sat beside my daughter while she was sick. I started asking questions, started telling secrets, I … I told them I was afraid. I told them I didn’t want to be alone.”
Maybe Kasla said something with her eyes. He couldn’t bear to look up and see.
“And then, when I said that … I don’t know, maybe I just said so much that someone finally heard me. It was too late, then, my daughter was gone. But they answered … and they told me … and they said I didn’t have to be alone anymore.”
He looked up, out over the sea. It was calm.
“So I went to the shore. I started walking into the sea. And I didn’t stop until I became …” He held out his hands, white and sickly. Not Hanth’s hands. “This.”
“You could have told me,” she said. “I would have understood.”
And then he looked up. He looked into her dark face under the bush of dark hair. It was pained, trying to figure out something and agonized that it didn’t make sense.
“I wouldn’t have, no,” she said with a sigh. “But you should have told me.”
“I should have,” he agreed. “I should have done many things.”
There were no stars in the sky. There were clouds. And when they shifted, a tinge of red could be seen within them. But the sky had been bled dry, of stars and of light and tears. Nothing was left.
And in the darkness, she spoke.
“Tell me why it has to be like this.”
“I already told you.”
“Tell me again. Please.”
Hanth pulled himself to his feet. The wood of the docks felt cold and splintered underneath him, sent tingling lances up through the soles of his feet and into his calves. But he cast a smile at her, as warm as the water, as he offered a hand to her.
“Because I made a lot of mistakes,” he said, gently helping her to her feet. “And the more mistakes I make, the less chances I have to make up for them.” Hand in hand, they began to walk to the end of the dock, to the vessel bobbing patiently in the water. “So when they come along, I have to take them.”
“I’m not a child,” she said, pulling her hand from his.
He winced. “I know.”
“Then don’t talk to me like one.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Because I remind you of her?”
He felt the shadow fall over them. He heard the low, guttural hiss that accompanied it. He sensed their eyes, their vast and empty stares, boring into the back of his skull. They were waiting for him, their claws twitching eagerly as they rapped upon the stone.
He did not turn around.
“Because I want you to forget this,” he said. “I want to hope, somehow, that one day you’ll just wake up and think everything has been a bad dream. This place, them … me.”
“I never will.”
“Maybe you can’t,” he said. “But I want to hope you can.” He looked at her, swallowed hard. “If I can’t have that—”
“You can.” Her eyes were glistening, reflecting a light that wasn’t there. “I’ll try to forget.”
He nodded, silently. To say anything else would be to give her something to hold onto. Something to cling to when she wondered about what had happened to him. Something to remember when she looked out over the ocean at night and wondered if it had ever been more than just a nightmare.
He could not give her any memories of him. He wasn’t that cruel.
So he gingerly eased her into the vessel. He checked to make sure that it was laden with food, enough to see her a few days adrift in the shipping lanes. He tried not to think about what might happen to her out at sea without him.
He untied the boat.
He watched it drift out onto the sea, away from him.
He watched her, trying not to scream at her, to tell her to turn around and stop looking at him. He watched her. She watched him. And neither of them turned around.
Not until she had vanished into the night.
It wasn’t enough. He could still feel her staring when he turned around to face them.
But he forced himself not to turn back around and see if he could still catch a glimpse of her. He forced himself not to look away from them as they stared down behind veils of blue light. He forced himself to look into their eyes, the black voids that hung like obsidian moons over their needle-toothed jaws wrapped around soft, feminine lips.
“You will leave her alone,” he said flatly.
Alwaysalwaysalwaysalonealone.
He saw lips twitch, heard the whispers inside his head. He couldn’t tell which one of the two was speaking. It didn’t matter.
Apromiseisapromisepromisepromise.
MotherDeepkeepsHerpromisespromisespromises.
Youknowknowknowthisthis.
MouthMouthMouthMouth.
MouthMouthMouthMouth.
It almost sounded like a word from a language he had never heard b
efore, the kind of direly important gibberish he had heard only in bad dreams and fever-hot ears.
Mouth.
That was his name now. That had been his name ever since he had turned around. Hanth was the bad dream now, a half-word that she would remember for a scant few breathless moments before rolling over and going back to sleep.
Hanth should stay in those bad dreams.
The waking world belonged to the Mouth.
And the Mouth belonged to Ulbecetonth, as did the city.
“Take me to them,” he said.
The Sermonics turned about slowly, pressing their withered bellies to the wood and clawing their way toward the city on thin, gray nails. Their eel tails dragged behind them, their blue lantern lights bobbed before them. These were the angels that heralded his arrival, their whispers were the trumpets that announced his coming.
The Mouth of Ulbecetonth, Her will in mortal flesh, strode through the ruins of Port Yonder.
“Ruins” might have been too dramatic a word for the empty streets that greeted him, though. The buildings stood undisturbed, witnessing his procession with as much silence as they had witnessed the horrors hours ago. The cobblestones were clean of corpses, such valuable commodities having long been taken for more practical uses than decoration. The people and all their noise and fears and tears were gone and the stones weren’t telling where they went.
The Mouth closed his eyes as he walked and pretended that nothing had ever happened here.
It was easy. Until a pungent, coppery perfume filled his nostrils and he felt his foot settle in a cloying pool of something sticky and thick. He winced, tugging at his foot. It came free with a long, slow slurping sound that resonated in the silence, like a thick, wet piece of paper being slowly ripped in half.
It followed his every step.
It followed him to the temple, and the cluster of fear and quivering flesh assembled within its shattered walls.
The people of Port Yonder were massed within the former prison. And with its captive fled, they joined between the gaping cracks, beneath the sky of shattered stone, a sea of skin and tears that roiled with every wail, rippled with every sob, heaved with every plea offered to anything. To the godless sky, to the pitiless stone, to the creatures that guarded them.