Charlene stared at each one of them, trying to assure herself that she must be mistaken but the more she stared, the more convinced she was that she was correct. She allowed the action around her to continue now, watching mesmerized as the injured man bit hard into the flesh of Petra Miller’s arm. Now that she had made the connection, Charlene couldn’t separate these people from what she knew of them and it was disturbing to think of this bloodthirsty man, with his eyes rolling back with bloodshot delirium, as the future president of the United States.
Charlene could see that the man’s wounds were knitting together and healing quickly, the leeches taking the energy they needed from the infusion of new blood as he sucked and lapped at the woman’s arm. Ahken stood quickly, agitated and unsettled. He steeled himself, leaning his body forwards as he broke into a sprint and Charlene watched him running towards Stanwick who was at that moment ducking low to avoid another disk which spun wildly awry, scattering the crowds behind them. Stanwick was a couple of feet now from the source of all this mayhem; a large machine with a wide mechanical arm which rotated on a metallic base. The clockwork mechanisms whirred menacingly, but Stanwick managed to slide into a position out of the range of the machine’s firing radius, lashing out, kicking at the machine repeatedly, smashing her feet into the mechanical arm again and again.
Ahken crouched low, swaying to and fro as the machine reared, slinging another disk towards him, and even skewed at an angle by one of Stanwick’s blows, the machine seemed to fire with prescient accuracy. Ahken threw himself forward and the blade skimmed inches from him, traveling the length of his body but never making contact. He was up on his feet quickly and he now joined Stanwick’s efforts, striking repeated blows to the machine with his fists and feet. However, it was Stanwick who struck the disabling blow, her foot connecting perfectly with the metal arm as it swung towards her, the combined speed making for an impact which sent the machine toppling backwards, hissing steam and grinding gears as it went.
Hundreds of people now coursed past, sure that the way ahead was now safe, quickly filling the dark expanse. In the distance, far ahead of the crowd, Charlene could see a lone figure retreating, a long shadow trailing behind as light broke the darkness in front of it. Stanwick stooped to pick up one of the metal disks, cradling the serrated teeth in her fingers and reaching out to drag Ahken into action with her free hand. She was faster than Ahken, stronger and certainly more aware of her surroundings, powering quickly through the crowds with Ahken stumbling behind in her wake as she made for the retreating figure. Apparently frustrated by Ahken’s cumbersome and clumsy progress, Stanwick let go of his hand, bounding ahead gracefully, one hand pulsing back and forth at her side, the other angled outward and cradling the disk under her arm.
Charlene couldn’t bear the anticipation, but because West struggled to keep up with the girl, Charlene could neither see, nor imagine any greater detail in the scene before her. Gradually though, as West started to catch up, trailing only a few feet behind Stanwick, Charlene started to be able to make out her surroundings and she could see that not far in front of her, the smooth floors and walls of the vast space gave way to jagged rocks and rubble.
Their prey was not far ahead now; Charlene could make out the slender form of King Pretchis, picking his way through the treacherous terrain, a misty light pouring into the space in front of him. There was now no suggestion of architecture or design to the space, and it became obvious that the building had been constructed around a colossal cave, stalactite forms hanging from the ceiling, boulders and jagged rocks covering the uneven floor.
The mouth of the cave was bathed in a green light, the distant daylight diffused by heavy foliage. The sounds of the army which had been falling behind anyway, were now drowned out completely by a strange, low rumbling sound. Stanwick leaned her body sideways, swinging her arm backwards with the jagged metal disk in hand. Her arm cut through the air in a blur of motion, flinging the blade in a flawless trajectory.
Silhouetted in the hazy opalescent light, the king staggered, the proud profile of his face almost discernible as he cast his gaze back towards them. With the coup de gras whistling through the air behind him, his hands pumping backwards and forwards at his sides, Pretchis’ shadowy form was almost completely lost in the shimmering, emerald white light. A fine spray of red misted the air; his right hand severed cleanly, his thigh ripped open in a jagged line, Pretchis limped on. But now they were close enough to see his planned route of escape. A great waterfall blanketed the mouth of the cave, and with three more crooked strides, arms thrown overhead, body arching into a dive, Pretchis leaped forward, and was carried away in the thunderous waters.
Blackness consumed her vision, and Charlene was left to the confines of her imagination. She opened her eyes, and saw the apartment in front of her, Stanwick and West both still seated on the hardwood floor watching her.
Lying next to West on the floor of the apartment, Stanwick ran a finger across his brow. She touched her bare foot against the wall beside Charlene, listening to the cascade of thoughts, “She’s just left the Dannustine Palace.”
Eyes closed, West’s brow furrowed, “She’s not exactly rushing through this.”
“Can you blame her? ”
West conceded with a gentle raise of his eyebrows, feeling the light pressure of Stanwick’s fingertips tracing along the curve of his eyelids; left eye, right eye, then she stroked the bridge of his nose.
“Why have you been avoiding me?”
He didn’t answer.
She laughed and slapped his forehead with her open hand, “Don’t pretend that’s not what’s been going on. We were thick as thieves you and me, roaming South America together …” she stroked his hair affectionately, “We took the cure … We had a life. We had fucking Chile!” she sighed, exasperated with her rose tinted memories, “We were comfortable.” She watched his face, sure that she saw some hint of emotion there, "then … poof, you pull a vanishing act.”
Stirring, West stared into her eyes, unsure if there was any sufficient explanation.
“Stanwick, I didn’t know how to find you. I was sick, and I didn’t know how to get well again.”
Stanwick’s mouth fell open in shock, “Shut up!”
“No, seriously. I nearly died in Chile.”
Stanwick shivered, goosebumps raising the tiny hairs of her arms as the thought raced through her mind, “What do you mean? What happened?”
West shrugged, “I think it was malarial fever,” his voice trailed off and he muttered, “I’ve never really been sure.”
Resting her hand on his chest, Stanwick asked, “Why didn’t you just leech straight away?”
He looked scared as his eyes met with hers again, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what was going on. I was losing my mind.”
“How do you mean?”
“When we got separated, I was frantic; I was having dizzy spells, crippling pains and when I slept I had fevered dreams of Allim. I started to wonder if all of my memories were caused by these fevers. I started to forget things; small things at first, names of people, places, that kind of stuff, but it got a lot worse, and suddenly there were vast tracts of history I couldn’t remember. I spent a few nights in a small village in the Chacabuco province and by the time I was well enough to really move around, I had no idea where I’d even seen you last.”
Stanwick was dumbfounded. She had waited for him, of course, but eventually she had began to harbor a petty suspicion that after so many years he’d finally grown sick of the sight of her. She thought she was doing the right thing by allowing him some space, thinking that he would come running to her after a few days. It shook her now to think that West had been seriously ill and she’d just left him to suffer.
“The worst of it was, some of the locals seemed to be convinced that I’d always been there. They knew me by name, told me stories about how I’d worked with some of them, fishing and hunting … Me Stanwick, fishing! Can you imagine? When I finally went o
ut with a couple of them on a boat, it turned out I wasn’t too bad at it and their story started to make more sense than any of my memories. So I spent two years working a skiff, pretty much certain that all of my memories of Allim were psychotic fantasies.”
Stanwick blinked hard, shaking her head, trying to dislodge the mental image of West working as a fisherman, “So how did you recover?”
West closed his eyes and rested his head on the floor, “I kept having these vivid flashbacks of the house in Villarrica. I didn’t know if it was real or not, but the images were so vivid that it reached a point where that house was all I could think about. I bid my farewell to my fishing companions and made my way to Paraguay.”
Stanwick shook her head, “Hold on … I was there West. I stayed at the Palacio for at least a year hoping you would show up.”
West looked up at her smiling, remembering the house they had shared together in Paraguay, their elderly housekeeper who had always managed to make an ordinary mansion feel like a palace.
“When I arrived, Fabiana told me you’d not long since left.”
Stanwick sighed, “You know Fabiana died three days after her ninetieth birthday?”
The corners of West’s mouth turned downward slightly, “We should have made her. She put up with so much crap.”
Stanwick lay her head down on the floor and took hold of West’s hand, “I offered it to her. She told me she’d spent too long looking forward to seeing Eliseo in Heaven. She was polite about it though.”
West chuckled gently, “She probably thought you were mad.”
“She would have had a point.” Stanwick leaned her head forwards and glanced at Charlene, watching the muscles of her legs twitch as her mind walked her through West’s memories
Charlene followed West’s army; fearsome and organized as they marched through the collapsed and ruined walls of the city, out into the unknown world beyond. She counted a week of sunrises, and the whole time, the army ran almost ceaselessly, heading towards the mountains in the North. When they reached the foothills of the mountain they camped down, and several hundred of them wandered off scouting, returning later in the evening carrying the bodies of slain animals on which the army feasted.
As the sun rose on the eighth day, West led the army in formation, marching in tightly knit lines as they headed up the slopes of the mountain until eventually West called for them to halt. On a ridge forty or fifty yards ahead of the front line, there stood a herd of several hundred horses, all in a clean line with their heads bowed down. There appeared to be no one guarding the horses, no riders, which suggested that they couldn’t pose much of a threat; however, as they started to shuffle slowly forwards from the prow of the ridge, Charlene sensed something off about their gait, the way they swayed as they moved, something peculiar about their stride. She moved as close as West’s memory would allow without her vision blurring and she was able to see that each of the horses bent low on their front legs, pushing their hooves through the rubble and scrubby vegetation, rather than lifting their legs as they walked.
Several men and women who had gathered around West shouted orders to the army. On their command, hundreds of people moved to join the front of the pack, forming a long semicircle, standing shoulder to shoulder, each of them brandishing long blades which they had gathered from the ruins of the Dannustine Palace.
Now the horses advanced more rapidly, still shuffling their hooves forwards, bodies swaying cat like, side to side until finally they came close enough that Charlene was able to make out the truly hideous nature of the beasts. The bodies, legs and hooves were definitely equine; however, the heads which hung stooped in front of the powerful chests were not. Jaws open wide, long prehistoric snouts pointing earthward, the horses each bore the heads of crocodiles, their pointed teeth opalescent and gleaming in the morning light, strands of saliva webbing their mouths.
The animals all at once began to gallop, closing in on West’s front line; heads pushing forwards on their long necks, their break of speed was phenomenal. West barked orders as he knelt in the gravel, bracing himself for the assault and even though Charlene knew that West was alive and well, sitting in an apartment in New York, she couldn’t help feeling terrified for his safety.
As the first of the creatures collided with the army, the sight was brutal. Everywhere, blades hacked and sliced at the animals to no avail; jagged rows of teeth ripped and gnashed at the men and women, several of the fighters lifted bodily of the ground and tossed around like rag dolls, arms still flailing blades at the necks of the animals in a desperate attempt to free themselves. The horse’s bodies reared up, hooves crashing into the chests of men and women as reptilian heads lunged at their prey.
Suddenly knocked to the ground from behind, from West’s perspective Charlene was lying on the ground in the thick of the action, West’s arms scything a circular motion overhead, the smooth blade cutting clean through all four legs of one of the horses. As the body fell towards her, the world span, West’s field of vision swaying wildly as he rolled out of harm’s way. There, in the brief snatches of sky that Charlene was able to see as West shuffled and rolled on the ground, large birds flew overhead, their dark forms all but blotting out the dawn light. West gathered himself onto his haunches, and seizing an opportune moment, with the path around him clear, he leapt from the ground and managed to avoid the snapping jaws of one of the horses which reared up at him as he sailed through the air. Falling back towards the battlefield, West looked skyward in horror and awe. These were not birds which flew overhead; with huge leathery wings beating, arms wielding blades, Charlene could now make out the grotesquely distorted human forms as they soared over the battlefield.
West landed hard with his back arched over one of the horses. A figure swooped down towards him, blade lashing out clumsily overhead and West clambered desperately, clinging to the horse’s partly reptilian neck. The horse kicked up its hind legs, throwing West forward, then with another jolt, West was thrown off, his head crashing against a large boulder as he fell to the ground. His vision faded rapidly, and the last thing Charlene saw were the hooves falling on his chest, the sharp teeth lunging towards his face.
West and Stanwick both sat up, watching Charlene stir to consciousness. When she pulled the glardium weave from her face, she looked ashen, as if she was about to vomit. She wretched, coughing dryly, but to West’s relief, nothing came up. He jumped to his feet and walked towards her, taking hold of the neck brace and catching her as she fell forward.
She stammered breathlessly, “There … There were horses with,” she breathed heavily, “with heads like …”
West patted her back, “Leechmares. They were one of the first true abominations of the Mythologue.”
She stumbled backwards, but West held her tight, leaning his weight away from her to stop her from falling. Terrified, Charlene’s eyes darted about the features of West’s face, checking that he was okay, “What the hell are they?”
Stanwick stood up calmly and walked over to the couch, “They were King Pretchis’ first attempt at splicing. West had encountered similar animals during his exile in the void, things infused with the blood of the Dannum, but in the days after the fall, Pretchis ran amok, creating all manner of beasts.”
Charlene grimaced, “That’s horrible.”
Stanwick shrugged, “That was nothing. At least the horses couldn’t fly. I take it you saw the winged Leechborn?”
Charlene nodded her head a fraction, unable to talk about what she’d seen.
Stanwick flapped her arms mockingly, “Honestly, they posed more of a psychological threat than anything. You know how much upper body strength it takes to flap an eighteen foot wingspan? By the time you’ve allowed the leeches to spread the bulk of your body weight and bone mass into wings, you’re basically worth shit on a battlefield.”
West rolled his eyes at Stanwick, “They killed hundreds in that first assault; not everyone has the same spatial awareness as you in the heat of battle.�
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Stanwick laughed hard, rocking forward, “True that! Some people manage to get themselves trampled by spooked ponies in the first few minutes of a fight.”
Certain that Charlene was steady on her feet, West joined Stanwick on the couch, punching her arm as he sat beside her, “Sure Stanwick, I got trampled by a pony, that’s exactly what happened; the first major battle of the Mythologue, and the man known throughout Allim as the ‘Scourge of the Void’ was bested by a tiny horse.”
Charlene eased herself into a chair, pulling her feet up beneath her, “Wait, what you said just now …”
Stanwick raised her eyebrows, “Tiny horse?”
Charlene glared at her, frustrated, “No, the void.” Charlene tried to recall what it was the voice had said to her in the hopper, “Child of the void garden … It was just something that Pretchis said to me in the …” she felt a flush of embarrassment as she struggled with the new terminology, “the hopper.”
All joviality went from Stanwick’s face as she leaned forward, “Sorry, what? Pretchis spoke to you directly?”
Charlene nodded slowly, unsure if she’d misspoken.
West too looked austerely serious, “Charlene, can you remember exactly what it is you heard?”
She furrowed her brow, stroking her temples as she closed her eyes in concentration, “It was in the palace; he was talking to you all, and I could get the gist of what he was saying, but then he started talking plain English, something about an infinite reign?” West glanced uncomfortably at Stanwick as they waited for Charlene to elaborate.
“Yes … yes, that was it. He said, ‘Child of the void garden, time will not bring you succor,’”
She paused, trying to drag the exact words from her memory, then opening her eyes as the wording came back to her, she continued, “succor or … or security. My reign is infinite and my contempt will know no temperance. I am the light at the beginning of your universe … the darkness that consumes as the worlds drift into my farthest reaches.”
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 22