by James Erich
Loving Sael promised to tear open the old wounds again. Death pursued the young nobleman and could take him at any moment. Koreh would do everything in his power to save him—in this, he had no choice. But even if Sael lived to reach the safety of his home and somehow survived a war against the emperor, there was no place for Koreh in Harleh or Worlen. Certainly he could not expect to find a place in the vek’s household as anything other than a servant. Loving Sael promised him nothing but pain.
But he’d do it anyway. Koreh was beginning to realize there was no escaping it.
Perhaps I’ll die for you, little lord. I’ll leap between you and an assassin and breathe my last breath cradled in your arms as you cry over me. And you’ll remember me forever.
Better than spending the rest of his days as the vek’s stable boy, hoping to get a glimpse of the man he loved whenever Sael saddled his horse to go out riding.
Those morbid thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Sael grabbing Koreh’s hand in both of his own and clutching tightly. Sael’s face looked fearful, and Koreh turned to see an enormous creature rise up out of the depths, lifting one of the boat-sized kim straight upward in its gigantic maw. The rows of fangs in its mouth easily ripped through the flesh of the fish, leaving its head to tumble back down into the water, trailing a stream of blood and gore.
“That,” Sael shouted, pulling Koreh away from the railing, “is a ghusat!”
Geilin was already rushing to their side as the captain frantically attempted to turn the ship away from the monster. “Get away from the railing!”
He pulled them both toward the middle of the ship, where they could grab hold of some tackle fastened to the deck.
“Stay down low,” Geilin commanded them as the deck suddenly tilted.
A wave crashed over the deck, drenching all of them as the ghusat plunged back into the lake not forty feet from the cutter. The passengers clung tightly to the ropes and the captain swore, spinning the wheel in a frantic attempt to get the boat upright.
He succeeded, but the snake breached the surface again, another kim flailing in its mouth. Long, curved horns bristled around the ghusat’s head like a mane, and a row of interlocking fins trailed along the length of each of its mottled sides.
“It’s going to kill us!” Koreh gasped, wiping long wet strands of black hair out of his eyes.
Sael gripped Koreh’s tunic, holding on for both of their lives. “It just wants the kim.”
“But we look like one!”
The kim themselves were frantically trying to escape the enormous predator, churning the lake around them into a white foam as they thrashed about. They smashed into each other in their panic, and several of them struck the boat. Koreh feared the small craft would splinter apart and sink. Even without a monstrous serpent that could snatch them out of the water and swallow them whole, the companions would be unable to swim for shore—it was leagues away.
The captain was cursing at the top of his voice now, spinning the wheel this way and that, struggling to keep the Nagaing from being destroyed. Water ran like a river across the deck, several inches deep, pouring out the gunwales on the sides of the boat. Koreh desperately wanted to do something—grab a foresail and help guide the craft, throw ballast overboard—anything! But he knew nothing about sailing.
Just a few moments after vowing to protect Sael, and already he was helpless to do a thing!
“Can’t you kill it, Master Geilin?” Sael shouted above the creaking of the masts and churning of the waves.
The old wizard was kneeling on the deck, holding onto one of the winches. He was drenched by the spray, water running down his face in rivulets as he looked out at the serpent. “I doubt I have the strength to kill it! And I’m reluctant to anger it!”
“Smart thinking!” Koreh shouted, trying hard not to roll his eyes.
Wizards.
At that moment the kim appeared to realize, all at once, that they would be safer in the depths than thrashing about on the surface. The fish dove, causing large whirlpools, and the stern of the Nagaing swung about in a tight arc. Sael lost his grip on Koreh’s tunic, sliding toward the gunwale in a cascade of water.
He didn’t scream, but Koreh almost did, picturing him plummeting into the lake and sinking into the slate-gray depths. Koreh grabbed at him frantically, and just as Sael’s foot slid up and over the gunwale, Koreh managed to snag his wool cloak. Koreh was jerked hard and almost lost his own grip on the deck, but somehow he managed to hang on.
The captain shouted something at them, but the sounds of the water and the ship were too loud for Koreh to hear.
It was then that he saw the ghusat loom over the small cutter, shoot upward on one side of the ship, and arch over and down on the other side. The serpent’s massive head struck the water on the opposite side of the ship, and everything tilted violently. There was a massive snapping sound as the ghusat’s long body splintered the mast of the cutter.
Koreh expected the snake body to crash down on them, but it didn’t. The mast scraped along the underbelly of the beast, unnoticed, fragments continuing to snap off as the serpent slid up out of the water on Koreh’s left and down into the depths on his right.
At last, the tip of the tail, bristling with spikes the size of greatswords, raised itself out of the water in a tremendous spray, swung up over the small boat, and slapped down upon the surface of the lake before disappearing.
The companions were drenched yet again by the splash sent up from the tail before the ship reluctantly rocked back to an upright position.
Sael was sent sliding forward a bit by the motion, bringing him to Koreh’s shoulder. He threw his arms around Koreh’s neck and pressed his cold, wet face against the young man’s cheek. They were both shivering, and Koreh wasn’t completely sure it was from the cold.
“Gods curse that overgrown worm!” the captain snarled, spitting over the side. “Tha’s gonna cost me more than I charged the lot o’ ya!”
ONCE the Nagaing was floating in relatively calm waters, Koreh broke free of Sael’s grasp and ran to the gunwale, where he proceeded to vomit. Sael didn’t feel particularly well, either, but he managed to hold down his breakfast. He even managed not to tease Koreh about it, though that took considerable restraint.
The captain unlocked a long chest in the bow and removed two oars from it.
“Come on, you lot,” he ordered, handing the oars to Sael and Koreh. “I ain’t sittin’ ’ere ’til another one comes along!”
Sael was annoyed at first that the captain didn’t take an oar himself, but he quickly realized it would have been impractical. Geilin was too weak to row and having an uneven number of oarsmen would have been useless. It was two or nothing, and someone had to man the rudder. Otherwise the ship wasn’t going to go anywhere with her mast split in half. So Sael took the oar without complaint.
The Nagaing had several oarlocks built into her sides, so he slipped his oar through one and Koreh took the one opposite. Then they began rowing. With just the two of them, the ship proved cumbersome and unwieldy, but the captain shouted out a cadence, which helped. They eventually got the ship oriented toward shore and moving again. Once the ship picked up some speed, rowing became easier, though it was still the most strenuous labor Sael had ever been subjected to. Koreh was rowing without complaint, and Sael refused to whine in his presence.
By the time they pulled into a small harbor on the eastern side of the lake, Sael was thoroughly exhausted and certain his arms would drop off the moment he stopped rowing. He took some small consolation in the fact that Koreh was panting and seemed just as exhausted as he was. Maneuvering up to the dock was a painstaking, fiddly chore that took far too long, but at last they were able to disembark, sopping wet and chilled to the bone.
Geilin gave the captain a small additional payment for the damage done to the boat. It wouldn’t come close to covering the cost of replacing the mast, but it was all they could spare.
The captain accepted it as graciousl
y as he could manage, though clearly wishing it were more. “’T ain’t yer fault, I guess.”
The fishing town of Mivikh was much smaller than Mat’zovya—little more than a cluster of houses near the dock, but there was a general store where Geilin and the boys could warm themselves by a large, smoky brazier. The owner was willing to heat up some soup for a small price.
“Are you feeling better?” Sael asked Koreh quietly while Geilin was in the rear of the shop talking to the owner.
Koreh had barely touched his soup and still looked a bit peaked. But he replied curtly, “I’m fine.”
Sael tried not to be hurt by his abrupt manner, but it wasn’t easy. Was this always how it would be? Would Koreh always seem affectionate one moment, then cold the next?
Or maybe I’m reading too much into it when he seems affectionate. Maybe what he feels isn’t anywhere near as strong as what I’m feeling.
Sael had no experience with relationships. Was this even a relationship? Maybe Koreh was attracted to him and wanted to… play with him. But that was all.
Sael didn’t know if he could do that. Not if there was nothing more behind it.
Geilin walked over to them. “The proprietor says we aren’t far from the forest. We should be able to reach it before nightfall.”
Sael couldn’t say he was happy to hear that. He’d hoped they might be able to afford a bed somewhere in town for one more night. From the expression on Koreh’s face, it looked as though he felt the same.
Perhaps reading their thoughts from their expressions, Geilin said, “We’ve done a rather poor job of covering our tracks thus far. I confess I’m not very skilled at subterfuge. The longer we stay in town, the more likely it is that we’ll be found.”
“Warm yourselves a bit longer,” he continued. “Then we must leave. We still have to make our way through the marsh at the edge of town before we reach the forest.”
Chapter 17
THE marsh was about as dreary a place as Koreh had ever seen. Well, perhaps not as bad as the forest near Denök, but still dismal.
According to the store proprietor, it wasn’t more than a couple of leagues to the forest, but with the heavy fog, it was impossible to see very far. Koreh saw nothing in all directions but small clumps of dead grass and reeds in a maze of murky, stagnant water. Spindly, dead trees rose up out of the water here and there, their bark long ago stripped away by the elements, riddled with holes carved by insects and the birds that fed off them.
The Empire Road had long ago disintegrated into rubble here and disappeared under mud and sedges. But there was a path of sorts wending its way through the marsh. It consisted of nothing more than stone obelisks no taller than a man and spaced twenty or thirty feet apart. These were supposed to mark the safest route.
“Stay on the path,” the proprietor had told them, “and you’ll be safe enough. But may the gods help you if you’re foolish enough to wander into the bogs.”
They set out a few hours before end of day, though there was really no way to tell where Atnu was in the sky. As they walked, Koreh felt water squelching in his new boots and thought dark thoughts about what a ghusat would taste like roasted on a spit. His cloak had dried somewhat near the brazier, but his breeches and tunic were still wet in very uncomfortable places.
The going was relatively easy, but as the day wore on the fog grew thicker, until it was often difficult to see the next stone obelisk. Geilin paused several times, his brow furrowed as he searched the gray mist for the next marker.
“May the gods curse this wretched swamp!” the old wizard spat out after turning this way and that. “I think I’ve lost the damned thing. Can either of you spot it?”
Koreh peered out into the heavy blanket of fog but saw nothing. “Perhaps it’s fallen over?” he suggested.
“That would hardly surprise me, in all this muck.” Clearly beginning to lose his patience, Geilin turned back to look the way they’d come. “Can you even see the one we were just standing by?”
Koreh turned to look, and suddenly he had a horrifying revelation—he could no longer see Sael.
HOW Sael had gotten lost was a mystery to him, as well as to the others. He’d paused at one of the obelisks to remove a painful twig that had somehow worked its way into his boot, and when he looked up, Geilin and Koreh were gone. He could see the next obelisk ahead, so he rushed over to it, only to discover it wasn’t an obelisk at all. It was a rotted stump that just happened to be about the same height.
He looked about frantically but could see nothing.
“Sael!”
Koreh’s voice sounded far away—farther than seemed possible in the short time since Sael had lost his friends in the fog.
“Koreh!” Sael shouted. “Where are you?”
“This way!”
The shout seemed to come from his right, so Sael headed in that direction, hopping from tuft of grass to mud-covered stone to grass again. But after a while, he heard Koreh calling to him from his left, so he changed course.
“Koreh, you idiot! Stand still! I’ll never find you if you keep moving!”
He took another step forward and was horrified to see the ground around his foot ripple outward in a sluggish wave.
He was standing on a bog.
Somehow he’d walked out onto it without noticing. And underneath the thick carpet of grass and moss his feet stood on was nothing but water or mud. How deep, he had no idea. But people often fell through bogs and vanished without a trace.
He slowly starting edging backward, praying that solid ground lay just a few feet back the way he’d come.
“Come on, Sael.”
Koreh’s voice sounded close, coming from somewhere in the fog, but Sael couldn’t see him, and it was difficult to tell which direction the voice was coming from. He suddenly became fearful that Koreh would try to come to him and fall into the bog.
He called out, “Don’t come this way, Koreh! There’s a bog over here!”
“Where?”
Koreh seemed to appear just off to his right, standing in the mist.
“No! Koreh, don’t move!”
“Don’t be stupid, Sael,” Koreh said, irritated. “I’m on the path. You need to make your way over to me before you fall in!”
Sael could see him more clearly now, looking exasperated, stretching his hand out to Sael.
Sael tried to take a step in that direction, but this time his foot punched through the moss and he plunged down into the fetid mud up to his chest. He clawed at the moss near him, but it kept tearing in his hands. He was suddenly gripped with terror as he began to sink further and further into the muck.
“Koreh!”
“Try to come this way, Sael.”
He struggled to move forward as the mud seemed to pull him downward. But he managed to get a bit closer to his friend.
Koreh knelt in front of him and reached out a hand. For a moment Sael thought Koreh might be able to save him, but then he looked up into Koreh’s face….
And screamed.
Because it wasn’t Koreh’s face at all. It seemed to be carved of wood, a lifeless mockery of Koreh, the eyes staring blankly, the skin and smiling mouth painted on. Yet it wasn’t lifeless. The body moved. It reached out its carved, wooden hand toward Sael, its joints creaking. And then it pushed hard on his face, shoving him down under the black water.
Sael struggled to hold his breath while hitting at the arm that held him under. But it was like striking at a tree root—hard and unyielding and covered in something like bark, which scraped his flesh as he struck.
His vision filled with sparks, and he could feel himself slipping away into unconsciousness.
Then suddenly there was nothing holding him down. He could feel hands grabbing at his tunic, pulling him up. He broke through the surface of the murky water, gasping and feeling air sear at his lungs. He choked and began coughing while the hands that had rescued him wiped the muck out of his eyes.
When he blinked, there was a face
in his vision, just inches from his own—Koreh’s face. He almost screamed again, but the face spoke and he knew it truly was Koreh.
“You idiot! Why did you wander off like that?”
Sael groaned, but he was still coughing up putrid water and didn’t have the strength to argue.
“Come on,” Koreh said. “Move slow, or we’ll fall through again.”
He slid his arms under Sael’s armpits, pulling him close, as if he were hugging him. Sael could feel Koreh’s cheek hot against his own face, and for a moment he had the distinct impression that the young man was hugging him. Then Koreh started inching backward, dragging Sael up and forward out of the bog.
The mat of moss and grass sagged beneath his stomach, and he feared it might give way at any moment. But somehow it held as they made their way slowly across it, even after Sael’s legs were out of the water so he had his full weight on top of it.
Solid ground was thankfully just a few feet away. It wasn’t until Sael felt rock under his belly that Koreh released him. He lifted himself up onto all fours and saw Geilin. The old sorcerer was standing up, the front of his robe covered in mud, and Sael realized his master had been pulling on Koreh’s legs to help both young men make it back to land.
Before this journey had begun, Sael would have been profoundly embarrassed to learn his master had been forced to crawl in the muck in order to save him. After all they’d endured since leaving the capital, it seemed a bit less shocking, but he still felt badly about it.
“I’m sorry,” the boy said when he could speak. “I thought Koreh was calling to me, so I followed the voice….”
“That was a ten’nak,” Geilin said calmly.
“Where did it go?” Sael asked anxiously, peering out into the mist over the bog. Then he saw it—a crumpled, blackened shape lying near the hole. Geilin had blasted it.
The old man stood, wiping dead plant matter off his robe as best he could. “Don’t worry. It’s dead now.”
“But what is it?” Sael insisted.