by Sam Sykes
Humans.
The notion that humans, humans that were not hers, were on Ktamgi did nothing to improve her mood. However, it did not come as a complete surprise to her, either. Argaol, after all, had said that a few of the Linkmaster’s crew had escaped. The island had also been an outpost for pirates.
Why wouldn’t they come here?
The tracks asked her questions, her feet answered. The tracks told a story, her eyes listened. This was the true purpose of the shictish hunt: to learn, to listen, to ask and to answer. Intent on the earth, her eyes glided over the tracks, eager for a new story.
It had begun dramatically, she recognised by the chaos of the prints, though with no great care to establish the characters. The tracks were sloppy and slurred, their dialogue messy and hurried. She rolled her eyes; it was as though these particular humans had no appreciation for the fact that someone might want to hunt them like animals.
Insulting.
Regardless, she followed them further down the trail. They were men, evidenced by the particular depth of the prints, and not graceful men at that. They had been hurried, they had run, but for what purpose?
Perhaps they were chasing down prey? she thought, but quickly dismissed that idea. There was no evidence of another character in this story, no tracks of anything that might be construed as edible. But if not hunger, then what?
There was little else to motivate such speed. Gold, jewels, meat or violence were the typical spurs of flight, but all seemed to be in short supply on Ktamgi. She paused, scratching her flank contemplatively.
There’s always fear, she suggested to herself.
She sighed at that; such a predictable twist. Regardless, it forced the story on and compelled her to follow the trail.
The plot only grew more blatantly unimaginative from there, the signs almost disturbingly clear. Here, a boot had become tangled in a root, abandoned by its wearer, who took two more steps before the trail suddenly ended.
That caused her to pause. She glanced up and down the trail but found no more details of this particular character. He had fled only a little further and then, suddenly, disappeared, his feet gone from the earth as though he had sprouted wings. Against her better judgment, she glanced upwards; the canopy remained thick and whole.
Curious, she went further. The cast had been whittled to two, their paths crossing each other recklessly. A pungent aroma filled her nostrils, drawing her eye towards a small depression against the base of a rock.
She grimaced; a vile brew of yellow and brown pooled where one of the characters had fallen onto his buttocks and not taken a step further. A rather crude ending, she thought, but acceptable.
One set of tracks remained, stretching long and straight through the earth. This one had been spirited, she thought, running for another twenty-three paces before he collapsed beside a tree. Right next to the disturbed dirt where he had fallen, a glisten of ruby, stark against the tree’s brown, caught her eye. Her face twisted as she examined the old plant: its bark had been stripped bare in eight deep furrows. Red flecks glittered like tiny jewels, fragments of dirty fingernails like unrefined ore embedded in the wood.
Spirited, indeed.
Kataria rose, knuckled the small of her back and glanced around. This was hardly the ending she had expected. Three humans run into the forest, leave sloppy trails and then vanish? Where was the tension? Where was the drama?
Her eyes widened with a sudden realisation.
Where was the villain?
She stared down the trail, searching every depression, every track, every broken branch. She found nothing. Whatever had run these men down had left no sign of itself, its prints lost amidst the chaos of the chase, if there had been any prints at all. Her brow furrowed concernedly; there was no sign of the characters either. All that remained of the Linkmaster’s crew equated to a few specks of blood and fingernail, an old boot and a puddle of piss and excrement.
Not a proper ending.
The wind shifted, leaves rustled and she felt a sudden warmth on her back. Whirling about, she couldn’t help a twinge of pity at the sight of the sun shining through an opening in the foliage. The last man hadn’t been ten paces away from reaching open ground.
Then again, she realised, whatever finally got them likely wouldn’t be put off by sunshine and white sand.
It occurred to her that she ought to return to Lenk and have him listen to the story, as well. He was likely still in the same spot she had left him in, she thought with no small amount of resentment. In fact, if he hadn’t moved, whatever unnamed character had ended the three men would likely stumble upon him sooner or later.
Then again. . Her ears twitched thoughtfully. Is there any need to, really? If these deaths were recent, you would have heard them, wouldn’t you? A man who pisses himself doesn’t go silently. Whatever killed them is likely far and away, right?
Right.
She took a step forwards.
And what if it does come across him? He’s a big human. . fully grown, or so he says. He can take care of himself. And if he doesn’t, what’s it matter? He’s just one more human, soon to be one less human. For the better, right?
Right. Let’s go, then.
Her foot hesitated, having not apparently heard the mental debate. She looked down at the ground and sighed.
Damn it.
Of course she had to go back for him. He had been helpless, curled up on the ground like a mewling infant. An infant with a giant sword, she thought, but regardless. Her pride could not be his end; pride was a human flaw. While he might be human, he was one of her humans.
She rolled her shoulders, adjusting her bow, and began to trudge back across the trail. She had taken only half a step before an epilogue revealed itself.
A sudden aroma, growing stronger with the change in the wind, filled her nose. She glanced over her shoulder, peering towards the beach, and saw the smoke. Like ghosts, wisps of grey casually rolled across the breeze, drifting further down the shore.
In another twitch of her nostrils, the smoke became heavy with stench, thick with the aroma of overcooked meat. Choked screams carried on its long, grey tendrils. Her ears quivered, nostrils flared as she reached for her bow.
She forgot Lenk, helpless and mewling, and turned towards the beach. He would wait, she knew, and be there when she returned.
For the moment, Kataria had to see how the story ended.
Fourteen
THE PREACHER
‘Where is it going?’
‘The slave returns to its master, the parasite to its host.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘You cannot sense it?’
‘I can hear.’
‘Then follow.’
There was no choice in the matter. Lenk’s feet moved regardless of his approval, legs swinging up and down methodically, heedless of roots and undergrowth. He was aware of the numbness, but did nothing to fight it. He was aware of the fact that he was talking to a voice in his head, but did not cease to speak.
It had spoken with much less ferocity, much less coldness in its words. It no longer felt like a verbal vice, crushing his skull in icy fingers. Now, it felt like instinct, like common sense.
Now, it felt right.
‘Help me,’ another voice called, ‘please, Zamanthras, help me!’
That particular shrieking still grated on him.
He glanced up; the Omen seemed in no great hurry, pulling its plump body from branch to branch on spindly legs. It occasionally stopped to glance down at him, as if making certain he still followed. When he stumbled over a root, it paused and waited for him to catch up.
‘It wants us to follow it,’ Lenk muttered. ‘It’s leading us to a trap.’
‘It leads us to an inevitability,’ the voice replied. ‘Its master knows of us now, it wants us to find it.’
‘So it can kill us.’
‘So it can find out if it can kill us.’
‘Can it?’
No answer
.
The Omen took another hop forwards and vanished into the jungle’s gloom, the sound of feathers in its wake. Lenk followed, pressing through a thicket of branches. The leaves clung to him, as though struggling to hold him back. He paid them no mind, brushing them away and emerging from the greenery.
The sun felt strange upon his skin, hostile and unwelcoming. He could spare only a moment’s thought for it before glancing down at the wide mouth and bulbous eyes that stared up at him.
‘Sea Mother,’ it echoed from its gaping mouth, ‘benevolent matron and blessed watcher, forgive me my sins and wash me clean.’
A Zamanthran prayer, he recognised, desperate and brimming with fear. The idea of saving whoever the Omen mimicked was nothing more than an afterthought now and Lenk was no longer moved by it. The parasite sensed this, chattering its teeth at him and ruffling its feathers.
‘No more,’ he said, ‘show me.’
The Omen bobbed its miniature head, twisted it about so that it stared at Lenk upside down, then hopped a few steps and took flight. Lenk followed its low, lazy hover across the beach. The forest had not completely abandoned the sand, it seemed, and trees, however sparse, still stretched out their green grasp.
Lush, he thought, but not lush enough to detract from the bodies.
They were Cragsmen, or had been before the Omens had begun their feast. Now the plump demons cloaked them like feathery funeral shrouds, prodding with their long noses, tearing digits off and shredding tattooed flesh in yellow, needle-like teeth. In ravenous flocks, they devoured, slurping skin into their inner-lips and crunching bones in their wide jaws, leaving nothing behind.
Nothing but the faces.
The two men looked to be in repose. Their eyes were closed, mouths shut with only the faintest of smiles tugging at their lips. Perfectly untouched, their faces were pristine and almost pleasant against the mutilated murals of red and pink their bodies had become.
In fact, were it not for the faint glisten of mucus draped upon their visages, they looked as though they were simply napping in the afternoon sun, ready to awaken at any moment, shrieking at what had ravaged their bodies. Lenk could see the shimmer of the ooze, see where it had plugged up their noses, their ears, sealed their lips. These men would never wake again.
The Omens glanced up as he took a step forwards, regarded him for a moment through their unblinking eyes, then rose as one from the corpses. On silent wings, they glided down to the beach to the sole remaining tree, settling within its boughs to stare at him, a dozen eyes bulging through the leaves like great white fruits.
It was only when Lenk drew closer that he noticed the trunk of the tree. It was not slender and smooth, as the others were, but rough and misshapen on one side, as though it suffered some festering tumour.
As he approached it, he felt the noise die in one thunderous hush. There were no more birds singing, no leaves rustling, and even the sound of waves roiling went quiet. Lenk stared at the tree trunk for what felt like an eternity. It was only when it shifted that he realised.
The tree was staring back at him.
The Abysmyth made no movement, at first, nor gave any indication that it even knew he was there aside from the two great, white, vacant eyes glistening in the shadows. Its head lolled slightly, exposing rows of teeth, as something rumbled up through its chest and out through its gaping jaws.
‘Good afternoon,’ it said.
‘Good afternoon,’ the Omens mimicked in distant chorus, ‘good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon,’ Lenk replied without knowing why.
Perhaps it was simply wise to show proper manners to something capable of ripping one’s head off, he thought. The creature did not appear to register the politeness, however, and continued to roll its head upon its emaciated shoulders.
‘Mother Deep gave us, Her children, many gifts,’ it said, far more gently than its wicked mouth should allow, ‘and we, Her children, received no greater gift than that of memory.’
There was something unnerving within the Abysmyth’s voice, Lenk thought, something that reverberated through its emaciated body and glistened in its eyes as it turned its gaze out to sea. Perhaps the shadows obscured any murderous intent, but the young man could see no malice within the creature. It sat, leaned against the tree and stared out over the waves, at peace.
Like the damn thing’s on a holiday, he thought.
‘These are the voices I remember,’ the Abysmyth continued. ‘I remember the wind going silent, the sand losing its hiss and the water closing its million mouths, all respectful, all so that we, her children, may hear the sound of Mother Deep.’
Its head jerked towards him and Lenk’s sword went up, levelled at the beast. The creature merely stared at him, giving no indication it had even seen the blade, as it tilted its head, fixing great empty eyes upon the young man.
‘Listen,’ it said, ‘and you, too, shall hear Her.’
‘Listen.’ The winged parasites bobbed their heads all at once, their voices ebbing like the tide. ‘Listen, listen, listen.’
Lenk’s ears trembled; he heard nothing but the beating of his own heart and the rush of blood through his veins. Even that, however, fell silent before another voice.
‘Do not deign to indulge the abomination,’ it uttered within his mind. ‘To so much as hear the faintest note of Her song is to invite damnation.’
That, he thought, would have been a much more imposing reply than what he did say.
‘I,’ he paused, ‘don’t hear anything.’
The Abysmyth’s lolling head rose to regard Lenk curiously. The young man cringed; the thing unnerved him further with every moment. If it had attacked him then and there, he could have mustered the will to fight it. If it had threatened him, he could have threatened back.
Against this display of nonchalance, this utter, depraved serenity, however, Lenk had no defence.
It quietly creaked, resting its head back against the trunk of the tree, and cast an almost meditative stare across the ocean. Then, with the sound of skin stretching over bone, it snapped its great eyes upon him once more.
‘Good afternoon,’ it gurgled.
‘You. . already said that.’
It certainly did not seem wise to offer a colossal man-fish-thing cheekiness of any sort, but the Abysmyth hardly seemed to notice that Lenk had even spoken.
‘Time has no meaning to it,’ the voice replied, ‘for it has no use for time. It exists without reason, without purpose, and time is the reason for all that mortals do.’
‘I know you,’ it finally said. ‘It was upon the blight you call ship that I discovered you. I kept you pure, I kept you chaste.’
‘It babbles,’ the voice within muttered, ‘it is depraved, driven mad by its wounds.’
‘What wounds?’ Lenk asked.
‘You cannot see them?’
He squinted, peering into the shadows. Immediately his eyes widened at the gleam of emerald amongst the gloom. Great gashes rent the creature’s chest, wounds rimed with a sickly green ichor. Each movement of the demon, each laboured breath and swivel of head, made the sound of leather shredding as the green substance pulsed like a living thing, quietly gnawing on the demon’s flesh.
‘What happened to you?’ It occurred to him that he should be gloating over the creature’s wounds, not curious.
‘There was a battle,’ the creature replied, ‘longfaces. . many of them, but weak. They could not hear Mother Deep. We could. We knew. We fought. We won.’
‘We won,’ the Omens echoed above, bobbing their heads in unison, ‘we won, we won, we won.’
‘We. .’ Lenk regarded the demon warily. ‘By that, do you mean you and. .’ he made a gesture to the winged parasites in the trees, ‘those things? Or,’ he could barely force the question from his lips, ‘are there more of you?’
‘More, yes,’ the creature replied. ‘Our suffering is profound, but a duty we take gladly. Mother Deep requires us to suf
fer for your sakes and silence the voices.’
Suddenly, its eyes went wide. It rose in a flash of shadows, its shriek causing the Omens to go rustling through the leaves, chattering in alarm. Lenk sprang backwards, his sword up and ready to carve a new set of decorations in the creature’s hide. The Abysmyth, however, made no move towards him, not so much as looking at the young man.
It swayed, precarious, before crashing back against the base of the tree, staring up at the sky with eyes full of revelation. Lenk had seen such expressions before, he noted grimly, in Asper’s own stare.
‘That is it!’ It gurgled excitedly. ‘It is all so clear. The wind may die, the sea may fall silent, but mortals. . mortals are never quiet. That is why you cannot hear Her, that is why She cannot reach you.’
It turned its eyes towards Lenk and the revelation was gone. Its stare was dead again, empty and hollow as its voice.
‘Do not fret, wayward child,’ it uttered, ‘I am Her will, Her vigilance.’ Slowly, its webbed claw slid down to its side; there was a muted moan. ‘I can silence the voices.’
‘Silence them,’ the Omens whispered, ‘silence them, silence them, silence them.’
When the Abysmyth’s hand rose again, Lenk saw the Cragsman.
He had looked mighty back upon the Riptide, ferocity brimming in every inch of his tattooed flesh. Now, dangling upside down in the Abysmyth’s talons, he was nothing more than a chunk of bait, wriggling, albeit barely, upon a great hook. The claw marks that rent his flesh glistened ruby red in the shadows, the whites of his eyes stark as the yellow of his teeth as he quivered a plea.
‘Help me,’ the pirate squealed, ‘please!’ His gaze darted alternately between the demon and the young man. ‘I didn’t do anything! I don’t deserve this!’
‘Ah, you can hear that.’ The Abysmyth’s voice drowned the man’s screams under a multi-toned tide. ‘What purpose does it serve to make so much noise? Who can hear with such a tone-deaf chorus? It is a distraction.’
The thing’s other hand rose up like a great, black branch.