by Rick Yancey
He plopped down beside the mouth of the crevice, holding his rifle upright between his knees, and leaned his head back against the rock.
“I am tired, walaalo,” he sighed.
“You can sleep if you like,” I said. “I’ll stay awake.”
“Ah, but you forget my bargain. I am the one who must watch over you.”
“I don’t need you to watch over me.”
“It is not you I must answer to one day, walaalo,” he returned gently.
I eased myself to the ground, facing Awaale so I could keep the doctor within my peripheral vision. He hadn’t moved; neither had the mother and child. Maybe the doctor ke a rabidwas wrong, I thought. Not about the woman but about the child. How could the mother be infected and the child not be? Better to end their suffering now. I did not raise this possibility to either of my companions, though. I sat with it, and thought, and waited, while the night grew deep around me and my companions nodded off. I watched the woman’s eyes grow heavy, watched her head fall forward and then snap back as she fought her exhaustion. I was wide awake. I could have stayed awake for a thousand nights, so tightly wound was the thing inside me, das Ungeheuer, the me/not-me, the thing that whispered, I AM, and the thing that strove within me—and strives within you—to be free.
And while Mihos slept, Ophois rose.
There was the sigh of the wind and the crunch of the earth’s shattered bones and the cold steel of the gun and the sleeping woman. There was the baby pressed against her naked breast and the soles of her bloody, rock-chewed feet and the top of her head pointed toward me as if in offering. I raised the gun. Brought it to within an inch of her scalp.
The world is not round. The horizon is the summit of the abyss; there is no crossing back.
My eyes dropped to the baby as I started to squeeze the trigger. Its eyes looked back at me. He was awake, and he was suckling on his mother’s breast. My heart slammed against my ribs in panic. I dropped the gun and yanked him from her arms.
She snapped awake with a sharp cry and lunged forward, but I’d already backed out and turned up the path. There was no light to speak of to guide my way, and I didn’t get very far before I tripped over a rock and pitched forward, spinning at the last second to protect the child. Her wraithlike shadow loomed over me for a long, awful instant, frozen in time, and in that space between the one second and the next, a shot rang out from above, and the mother fell dead at the feet of the one who had stolen all that mattered to her. I looked up, expecting to see the doctor or Awaale, and seeing neither, but the smiling face of the one who’d begun it, the reason I was in this place of blood and rock and shadow, holding a bawling infant in my arms, the face of John Kearns.
With a little laugh he jumped down from his perch, dropping his rifle immediately when he saw Awaale and the doctor running toward us with the light. He raised his hands into the air.
“Don’t shoot; I’m clean!” he call
ed in that distinctive leonine purr of a voice. “My!” he said, sizing up Awaale. “You’re a tall African!”
“Cover him, Awaale,” said my master. “If he moves, kill him.”
He knelt before Kearns’s victim. She had been shot cleanly through the back of the head.
“Are you hurt?” Warthrop asked me anxiously. I shook my head. He quickly examined the baby, and then pulled it from my arms.
“I saved your life once again, Master Will Henry!” Kearns said teasingly. “Not that I’m keeping score. Warthrop, I thought you were dead—or mad, or both—soam halfway right—or wrong. Like everything else, it’s all in how you look at it. Is this very tall African going to shoot me for saving your assistant’s life?”
“Who is this man?” demanded Awaale.
“Jack Kearns, that name will do, or you may call me by my African name, Khasiis. And you are Awaale, which means ‘lucky,’ I believe.”
Awaale nodded. “And I know what your name means, Khasiis Jack Kearns.”
“Good. And now that we’ve been properly introduced, I suggest we extinguish that light and find cover as quickly as possible. The light draws them like moths to the flame; you must know that, Pellinore.”
The doctor did know. He directed me to pick up the surrendered rifle and ordered Kearns forward, followed closely by Awaale, back to our little hideout. Warthrop and I followed, the child twisting and whimpering in his arms. His little face was streaked with dirt and tears, and his mouth was glimmering with his dead mother’s milk. When we reached the cleft in the stone, the monstrumologist extinguished the lamp.
“I can still see you,” Awaale warned the Englishman.
“Really? Then, you have the eyes of a cat—or of a rotter.”
“Where are your friends, Kearns?” demanded the doctor.
“What friends? Oh, you mean the Russians. Dead. Except Sidorov. He might not be dead… yet. Not the eyes of a cat, but certainly the lives!”
“So it was to Sidorov that you offered the magnificum.”
“The magnificum? Well, I suppose. I offered to take him to its nesting grounds—but the beast itself, that was up to him and his friend the czar.”
“And?” Warthrop barked softly. “Did he find it?”
“Well, yes—or it found him.”
The doctor hissed through his teeth. He had been beaten to the prize, and by the worst possible rival, a disgraced and disbarred monstrumologist, a scientific charlatan who would take all the glory of being the first to lay eyes upon the Father of Monsters.
Kearns read the doctor’s reaction, and said, “Now, don’t be angry with me, Pellinore. I did send you the nidus, after all.”
“Why did you send it to me, Kearns? Wouldn’t you need that to convince Sidorov you were telling the truth?”
“Oh, the truth,” Kearns said dismissively.
“You knew I would come looking for you.”
“Well, it did occur to me that you might. And to Sidorov. He wasn’t too happy when I told him I had sent it to you for safekeeping. ‘Not him,’ he said. ‘Not Warthrop.’” Kearns’s Russian accent was ipeccable. “And I said, ‘Oh, Warthrop’s a good enough bloke, a fine fellow for a scientist and bloody moralist.’”
“That explains Rurick and Plešec.”
Kearns laughed. “Oh, good. Those two fairly scream for an explanation.”
“But not Arkwright.”
“Who is Arkwright?”
“You don’t know Arkwright?”
“Should I know Arkwright?”
“You offered the locus ex magnificum to the British.”
“I don’t think I should comment on that, except to say I am a loyal servant of Her Majesty the queen.” He raised his voice: “God save the queen!”
“When you are finished with him,” Awaale said to Warthrop, “I would like to kill him.”
“Well, aren’t you a bloodthirsty African! Wherever did you find him, Pellinore? Did you kidnap him from a pirate ship?”
“How did you know I was a pirate?” demanded Awaale.
“Enough, Awaale,” Warthrop said. “It’s best not to parlay with the devil, if you can avoid it.”
“That’s the trick, yes,” agreed Kearns cheerfully. “Avoiding it.”
“Where is it, Kearns?” growled the monstrumologist. “Where is the magnificum?”
John Kearns took his time in answering. My eyes had adjusted to the dark; still, I could see only the barest outline of the man, a shade of lighter gray against the black backdrop of the mountain. The voice issuing from that shadow was a low thrum, like the sound of a fly’s wings beating the air.
“Where is the magnificum? It is right above you. It is right beside you. It is behind you and before you. It is in that space one ten-thousandth of an inch outside your range of vision. Look no farther than the length of your nose and you’ll find it, Pellinore.”
Beside me the doctor huffed in frustration. I could feel his body tense, as if at any moment he might launch himself at Kearns and choke the life out of him. The whim
pering child cradled in his arms probably saved Kearns.
“I don’t have the stomach for this, Jack. I have suffered too much to suffer your riddles, too.”
“And not just you, I’d guess! I saw little Willy’s hand. Curiosity got the better of him, hmmm?”
Warthrop ignored the jibe and snarled, “Where is the magnificum?”
“You really want to see it? All right, I’ll take you to it. Not now, though. His children are about at night, and they are very protective of him, as my Russian friends discovered and you probably already know.”
He asked for some water, and then emptied Warthrop’s canteen. He announced he was ravenously hungry, and then tore into our provisions, cramming food into his mouth as fast as he could pluck it from the bag.
“Been hunting that one for days,” he said around a mouthful of hardtack. “All the way from Moomi. They exile the infected ones, you know—throw them out of the caves to fend for themselves, but I was waiting for the beast to take full hold of her—much better sport that way. The females are much harder than the males. The males come at you head-on, no stealth or subtlety about them, but the females are very clever. They’ll lure you into dead-end traps, lead you round in circles, sit statue-still for hours to ambush you. I’ll take a male as big and strong as Awaale here over a rotter like her any day.”
“You knew we were here,” Warthrop said. It was not a question.
“Saw your light. Knew you took her in. Didn’t know quite what to do; thought you’d take care of her yourself, Warthrop. Why didn’t you?”
The doctor looked down at the infant against his chest. The child had fallen asleep, its fat lips wrapped around its tiny thumb.
“You’ll have to do it, you know,” Kearns said.
The monstrumologist looked up. “What?”
“Kill it.”
“It has not been infected.”
“Impossible.”
“I’ve examined it.”
“It’s been sucking on its mother’s teat. How could it not be infected?”
Warthrop chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “It has no symptoms,” he argued stubbornly. I wondered who he was trying to convince, Kearns or himself.
“Well, do what you like, then. Let it starve out here.”
“We’ll bring it with us.”
“I thought we were going to see the magnificum.”
The doctor was rocking the child gently as it slept. “Awaale will remain here to watch him,” he decided.
“I will?” asked Awaale.
“And when the tyke gets hungry, he’ll stick its little mouth on his big black nipple?”
“Where is the nearest settlement?”
“With living people in it? Probably the caves over in Hoq.”
“He will deliver the child to Hoq, then.”
“For what? It’s been exposed; they’ll just kill it. Should do it now and save you and them all the time and trouble.”
“I can’t kill it,” the doctor said. “I won’t kill it.”
“Oh. Do you want me to do it?”
Warthrop instinctively pulled the child closer to his chest and changed the subject. “What happened to your Russian friends?”
“The same thing that happened to the girl out there—that happens to anyone who touches the rot of stars. It started out well enough. Mating season had just begun, and the casualties were limited; the sultan had it quite under control, contained to a couple remote villages. They isolate the plague, you see, rather like a smallpox outbreak, and let it burn itself out. Sidorov and company traced the nexus to the birthing grounds, deep in the belly of the mountains, and then one of the fools got strung up by his vanity. He literally put his foot in it—stepped in a fresh puddle of the pwdre ser—and then insisted on cleaning his boots! The rot burned through the entire company after that. I barely escaped. Been hunted—and hunting—ever since.”
“And Sidorov?”
“Oh, it got him, too. What day is this? Tuesday? Isn’t it funny how unimportant the days of the week become? Anyway, I think it was Thursday last that it took him.”
“Took him?”
Kearns nodded. “To the nesting grounds, where I’m taking you. If you still want to go.”
“What does it look like?” Warthrop asked. He did not wish to ask John Kearns that question—he wasn’t confident he’d get a straight answer—but he couldn’t help himself. The dead in his wake compelled him. He’d sacrificed them to know the face of the Faceless One.
“Well, it’s quite large,” Kearns replied in a serious tone. “Huge, actually. Been around as long as us, hopping from island to island to roost before going back into hiding for a generation or two. The males aren’t very bright, rather indolent, I would say, like a lion, sitting back and letting the females bring home the spoils.”
“But what is their appearance? Are they reptilian? Avian? Or are they more closely related to the flying mammals, like bats?”
“Well, their brains are quite small, like a lizard’s or a bird’s, but they don’t have wings. They’re covered in thorns—like a rose!—and their hides are very pale and thin, their claws sharp, and their digits are quite dexterous. Well, we all know the intricacy of their nests.”
“So they lay eggs, like a bird or reptile.”
Kearns shrugged, smiled. “Haven’t seen an egg—wouldn’t want to. Can’t imagine how that might happen.”
“How many are there?”
“Here on Socotra? Hundreds, I would guess.”
“Hundreds?” The monstrumologist seemed shocked.
“In the world, I would say thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Millions. As many as there are grains of sand on this blessed island’s beach. Look up, Pellinore. How many stars are there in the sky? That’s how many magnificum there are, and that’s the number of faces theythin, t#8221;
My master realized that he was wasting his time. He fell silent, and Kearns fell silent, and then there was the sound of the wind and no other sound for some time.
“If this is one of your tricks, I will kill you. Do you understand?” the doctor said at last.
“Oh, really, Pellinore. I want you to find it. Why do you think I sent the nidus to you in the first place?”
He asked for his rifle back. Warthrop refused.
“They’ll be here soon, and I’d rather be armed,” Kearns argued. “You would rather I’d be armed.”
“Who?” demanded Awaale. “Who will be here soon?”
“The rotters,” Kearns answered. “The children of Typhoeus. The blood draws them. They can smell it for miles, especially in this wind. May I please have my gun back?”
“I do not trust this man,” Awaale said. “His name is true. He is Khasiis, the evil one.”
“If I wanted to kill you, I had my chance hours ago,” returned Kearns reasonably.
“Will Henry,” the doctor said. “Return Dr. Kearns’s gun to him.”
Awaale muttered something under his breath. Kearns laughed softly. Warthrop rocked the baby in his arms, his expression as troubled as the baby’s was serene.
And thus we waited for the children of Typhoeus to come.
Warthrop decided to entrust the child to me.
“If the worst should happen, take him back the way we came,” he instructed me. “Down the path and out of the mountains. Make your way south, back to the sea. Gishub should be relative
ly safe until the Dagmar returns.”
“Let Awaale take it,” I protested. “I want to stay with you.”
“You are fierce, Will Henry,” he acknowledged. “More Torrance-fierce than Kearns-fierce, I hope, but…”
“It is all right,” Awaale put in. “Walaalo has his own bargains to keep. But your master is right, at least in this. Do not worry. I will protect him with my life.”
Kearns was loitering near the opening of the cleft, staring into the dark where the body of the woman lay crumpled upon the stone.
“It’s a perfect spot. Perfect!” he brea
thed. “We could not have arranged it better, Pellinore. I shall take my old roost there, on that ledge on the eastern face. You can take the northern approach, and Awaale the other end, at those boulders marking the trailhead. Oh, that devil Minotaur. I shall have his head ye#8221;
“Minotaur?” echoed the doctor.
“My name for him. A big brute, almost as big as our pirate here. Been after that one for days. He’s not a mindless animal like the others. He’s very clever, probably was a leader in his village, and he’s very, very strong. You can’t miss him—has a long spike growing right out the middle of his forehead—the stag of the herd, as it were. Travels in a pack of them, four or five the last time I counted, but they fall fast from the pwdre ser, as you know, Pellinore. So they may be down one or two unless a straggler’s joined the cause. A single bullet won’t take him down. He’s carrying around three of mine and still shows no sign of slowing. The last time I shot him—now, that was quite interesting. The wound bled a good deal, and usually it’s the blood that sets off the frenzy, but with the Minotaur the rest gathered around the spot and one by one gave it this kind of sycophantic lick, a rotter pledge of fealty. It was poignant, really, given that their lifetimes can now be measured in weeks.”
He raised his head, and we listened with him—but I heard nothing but the wind rubbing on stone.
“Something is coming,” he whispered. “I suggest we take our positions, gentlemen. Don’t fire until my signal or unless you have no choice. Best to wait till they’re distracted with the bait; then it’s rather like shooting fish in a barrel. Watch out for my friend the Minotaur!”
He scrambled up the trail; Warthrop followed a few steps behind. Awaale patted my shoulder, picked up his rifle, and took off in the opposite direction. I eased to the very back of the cut and hunkered down, holding the child awkwardly in my lap and thinking how stupid I was to be pressed into a corner like this with no means of escape and no way to defend myself. My fate—and that of the child—was completely in the hands of a psychopathic killer who liked to go by the Somali name for “the evil one.”