by Scott Hale
“Not much. It’s only whispers. Can’t make them out.”
“We shouldn’t have let them catch us off-guard like this,” Aeson said, worry in his voice. He dragged his feet out of the lake; and when the effects of the Ossuary set upon him like a yawning furnace, he quickly submerged them. “Vrana, doesn’t this seem wrong?”
“Any other time, I’d agree.” She sighed. “When it comes to deicide, I think we’re all in uncharted territory. I’m just trying to roll with the punches.”
“Yeah, b-but—”
Vrana brushed her talon against his leg, telling him to Breathe.
He did, and: “The village found us. This place has all we need. If they’re missionaries, then they’ve got us. And if they’re murderers… if they want what we want… Why didn’t God destroy Kres the moment it was built?”
“Maybe It doesn’t feel like it. Maybe It can’t.” Elizabeth stared at him. “Bones over there says the Heart’s gone quiet, yeah? We’re not in the Deep yet. Maybe we’re somewhere in between.”
“The Membrane,” the Skeleton mumbled. “I’d seen something like this place when I was there once. Looked… a hell of a lot like…” He trailed off, looked around. “Son of a bitch. Is that where we are?” He wasn’t asking them; he was asking the Black Hour. “No shadows, though.”
Vrana sat up. Shadows? She knew about shadows. She’d seen them before, from the Black Hour, and also, the witches. They hated them; said the Holy Child and some “whore” had invaded the Void with them. “What do you know about—”
Out of the avalanche, three mumiya emerged, each towing a netted creature behind them. Barbed spears jutted out of the beast, which was still fighting in its fetters, making wet, guttural sounds as it did. Vrana couldn’t tell what they were bringing in, but she could see that these mumiyas’ bindings were so covered in markings, they were blinding in the way they overlapped.
Neksha stepped next to Elizabeth. Startled, she sat and stood in one motion, and stumbled into the lake.
“You…” she started.
Neksha held up his decrepit hand. “My apologies.”
She trudged to the shore. The tattoos across her body glowed vibrantly, their inks renewed by the water.
“It would be best to come inside while the hunters deal with the Viracocha.”
Vrana glanced back at the rioting creature in the mumiyas’ net. A cloud of sand built around them from its violent thrashing.
“The Skeleton need not worry,” Neksha said, “but it can smell the fat of you three. Please—”
Vrana, Aeson, and the Skeleton came to their feet.
“—come inside. We have much to discuss, and it would be best to send you on your journey sooner than later, before we lose the Maggot in the dunes.”
Neksha led them into one of the buildings where the mumiya lived. Inside, it was more so an ossuary than the Ossuary itself. The entire interior was crafted from bones and cobbled together in the style of cyclopean architecture. Rough hunks of bone fused into pale boulders were the walls; and the floors, uneven stretches of bones that’d been pounded and pressed into flat shapes that resembled scales. The ceiling was comprised of thousands of ribs that narrowed into a point at the ceiling’s center; from there, a sarcophagus hung, and out of it, bindings spooled.
“Is that your master?” Elizabeth asked, pointing at the sarcophagus. “Getting some Orphanage vibes, yeah, King Boner?”
The Skeleton grunted in agreement.
“Not our master.” Neksha led them to a long table, also bone-forged. “The only constant open gateway to our homeland.” He went around the table and pulled out four chairs.
“Where’re you from?” the Skeleton asked.
“Exuviae.”
Elizabeth gasped.
Neksha said to the Skeleton, “You’ve seen it, I’m sure. Golden fields beneath a red sky; a monastery, and nuns clawing across the roof.”
“Yeah, that sounds like something.” The Skeleton took a seat. “What do you know about the Black Hour?”
Neksha waited until the others sat, and once they had: “It is from Exuviae, or Exuviae is from it. I know what the Black Hour is capable of. I know you carry the heart.” He finally sat, stretched his arms across the table; started picking at the bindings on his wrists. “I know you’ve come here to kill the Vermillion God.”
Aeson’s leg began to shake. A vein bulged in the side of his head. He worried at his clothing, wringing the sand from their creases. He stopped sitting and almost came to a crouch, as if he were ready to book it at any second.
“How do you feel about that?” Vrana quickly asked.
“Yeah,” Elizabeth said.
Neksha said, “More enthused than usual. The Ossuary is not only filled with the bones of those the Vermillion God has killed, but those that have tried to kill It. But you, Skeleton, bear the Black Hour. If anything can destroy the embodiment of order and tradition, it would be chaos. Your company is a vampyre—”
“Former vampyre,” Elizabeth said.
“—a Night Terror—”
Aeson’s leg stopped shaking.
“—and you.”
Vrana nodded, said, “Yeah, one of a kind.”
“You smell of the Void.” Neksha eyed her with suspicion. “Skeleton, do you trust this creature?”
Aeson cried, “What the hell are you getting at?”
“Me and mine are none of your concern,” the Skeleton said.
Vrana, clicking her talons against the table, said, “Thanks.”
“I do not mean to offend,” Neksha said. “The witches of the Void are not known to let their creations go.”
“I’m not a creation,” Vrana said. “I ate Pain. She’s nothing more than a pile of shit outside Communion. And Joy? As far as I know, her sister sucked up all the belief, so most likely, that bitch is trapped in the Void and won’t be getting out anytime soon. I’m not a creation.”
“Okay,” he said. “Knowing that, this group seems even more formidable.”
“To kill God,” Aeson grumbled.
“Yes.”
“Why do you want It to die?”
Neksha thought for a moment, and said, “We know better than anyone else the gluttonous cruelty of the Vermillion God. For as long as It has been, we have, too, on this forsaken frontier. I overheard you theorizing about whether or not this place is part of the Membrane. It is. The Ossuary is a bridge between the Deep and the elsewhere places. During the last Trauma, God’s wrath was such that this place was torn from the Membrane and forced into your reality. Now, the Ossuary is a bridge only to the Deep and, at times, Exuviae.”
“At times?” the Skeleton asked.
“It comes and goes, but since the God has awoken, the connection to Exuviae has been severed. No new mumiya enter here by way of the sarcophagus. For as long as God is awake, we are a dying race. That is fine, as long as we finally serve our purpose.”
“To kill God,” Aeson said again.
“Yes.”
“Your purpose… That’s… someone else’s words in your mouth.” He laughed. “Who do you serve?”
Neksha shook his head. “We do not know.”
“And God hasn’t stopped you all this time?”
“Everyone that has tried to kill God, or even discover Its secrets, has died. The allure of being able to challenge God draws Its enemies. The Vermillion God does not have to lift a tentacle to see nations destroyed. They destroy themselves, instead.”
“So, what’re you going to do for us, yeah?” Elizabeth asked.
“We will give you food and shelter; weapons and armor. You are fortunate. Our scouts spotted the Maggot not far from the village a few days ago. If you leave tomorrow, you may still be able to find it.”
“Your Maggot,” the Skeleton said to Elizabeth.
“Yeah. The Maggot. The Dread Clock. Exuviae. The Bad Woman…”
Vrana, plucking feathers from her arms, said, “What is the Maggot? It carried the Dread Clock to the
Nameless Forest, and now it’s here.”
“The Maggot was fostered in the Old World,” Neksha said. “It was a part of the Vermillion God’s innards. A failed Worm, perhaps. A woman, Ruth Ashcroft—”
Aeson gasped, mumbled, “Shit.”
“—grew the Maggot, fed it through sacrifices. She believed it would have the power to kill the Vermillion God before It was awoken so long ago. But she misjudged its power. The Maggot turned on her. It carried the Dread Clock to the Nameless Forest, thinking that God would awaken there again after the Trauma, but upon realizing the Ossuary had fixed itself to the continent, the Maggot came here, to cover more ground.
“The Maggot cannot kill the Vermillion God, but it will be your guide. It will take you to the Deep and show you where best to strike God. You were wise to bring the heart of the Black Hour. Had the Ossuary not linked the Deep and your continent, the Nameless Forest would have been God’s only entry point, and It may not have been able to emerge with the Heart sealing the gateway.
“But it will not be easygoing. The beasts of the Deep roam the Ossuary. The viracocha serve the God. They roam the sands in search of travelers, to kill and strip them of their fat, to offer it up to the Vermillion God. Once you leave this village, the viracocha will hunt you endlessly.”
“First shepherds, then viracocha.” The Skeleton shrugged. “Tell them to get in line.”
Aeson leaned into Vrana and whispered, his breath hot and stale, “Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.”
Vrana stared into his pleading eyes and nodded.
He slipped back into his seat, slouched.
“But what things live in the Deep, not even I can say.” Neksha stood. “We will prepare your provisions. Your rooms are being readied. You will be given the necessities to stave off the heat. Four of own will join your journey.”
Sarcastically, Aeson said, “Is that what you did for King Edgar when he came through?”
“More or less,” Neksha said.
“Thought you wanted to kill God, yeah?” Elizabeth said.
“We do.”
“Why did you help him, then?” Vrana chimed in.
“As far as we could tell, King Edgar summoned the Vermillion God without securing the Speaker to receive God’s will.” Neksha scooted his bone chair out and stood. “Sometimes, the best killer is carelessness.”
Nightfall came quicker than they expected. The solar and lunar cycle on this displaced plane of the Membrane was much shorter than their own. Also, while the day had gone without a sun to lay claim to the light that scorched the desert, the night sky was far more crowded. Twelve faint moons in various stages along the cycle crowned the sky. When Vrana asked Neksha what this meant, he told her that this wasn’t natural, which to her seemed a bit of an understatement.
“We’ve never seen this before,” he said, staring out the cyclopean window with her. “It is a good omen.”
Vrana shrugged. “If you say so. Hey, how do you know the witches?”
“All things old know Pain and Joy. We lost many mumiya bindings because of their meddling with the Abyss.”
“Their mother is Death.”
“Yes. She comes here from time to time to collect our bindings. She outfits her shepherds with them.”
“Shepherds. The Skeleton mentioned them.”
“They collect souls that have escaped the Membrane of the Abyss. We do not know why the shepherds need our bindings to do their work. I expect it is, in part, a form of punishment that Death takes the bindings away from us. She does not look kindly on creatures with long lifespans. I think She takes it personally.”
Vrana laughed. “She must hate the Skeleton.”
“I do not know his story, but if he holds the heart of the Black Hour, I am not sure Death would begrudge him for his immortality. I expect She pities him.”
“I still don’t get why you’re helping us kill God.”
“We are caretakers of an idea,” Neksha said. “Nothing more. We have no ambitions beyond the notion that the Vermillion God must be destroyed.”
“But you’re aware of that.”
“We are.”
Vrana stared at him in disbelief. “You remind me of something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Homunculi.”
“The name sounds familiar…”
Vrana considered getting into the Night Terrors’ history but stopped herself.
“… but most things do, when you’ve been alive as long as we have, and have heard as much as we have. Do not pity us.” He tightened the binding around his waist as if it were a belt. “We know how to have fun.”
Vrana snorted, shook her head. “Yeah, I’m going to have to see that to believe it.”
Neksha said, “Knock, knock.”
“You fucking kidding me?”
“You’re supposed to say ‘Who’s there?’.”
Vrana stared down her beak at the mumiya. “Who’s there?”
“Amos.”
“Amos who?”
“A mosquito.”
Vrana stared at Neksha.
Neksha stared at Vrana.
“Heh, heh, heh,” Neksha said, laughing at his own joke, and walked off.
Vrana stayed where she was, speechless, as if she’d just been told the meaning of everything.
The room they were staying in was on the second floor of one of the mumiya dwellings. Equally outfitted with bones as the floor below, this room’s walls were unique in that they depicted, through hieroglyphics that looked vaguely Egyptian, what appeared to be a history of the people and the region. Vrana couldn’t make sense of most of it. Only some symbols spoke to her. Four buildings. A tornado of sand. The red line that ran through every depiction—a vermillion vein. And what appeared to be a winged insect framed against a moon.
With no doors, the room was open to any visitor who might wish to enter. And enter they did, in intervals. Now, four mumiya were coming through. Two were sharing between them a long package wrapped in a chitinous material, while the other two were hauling an ornate chest. The package clinked and clanked as they moved, and Vrana quickly identified that there were weapons beneath the wrapping. But when it came to the chest, which comprised of interlocked hands and fingers, and hinged jaws that served as the lid, she had no idea.
“These are your weapons and armor,” Neksha said.
The mumiya bearing the wrapped package laid it down on a table and, carefully, pulled the chitinous wrapping apart. Underneath, as Vrana expected, were four weapons: a dagger, a sword, a machete, and an ax. Each weapon was intensely black, except for where red runes had been carved into their hilts and blades.
Aeson, who’d kept to himself this entire time, and who was posted up across the room, shaded by the curtains hung there, said, “Are t-those Red Death weapons?”
“Yes,” Neksha said.
Elizabeth, lounging on her bed, sprung up, saying, “Oh, shit.”
Only the Skeleton was less than impressed. He stayed at his small reading table, slouched in his chair, unmoved. For a man who couldn’t die, he didn’t need fancy weapons to do what needed to be done. All he needed was persistence and patience, and, being immortal, he had those in spades.
Vrana stepped away from the window. Fallen feathers had bunched up around her feet. Noticing she was molting, she said, “Aren’t those rare?”
“Yeah, they are,” Aeson said, an expert on the matter. He was the only one here to have wielded a Red Death weapon. Death Herself had made it for him to kill the witches from Bjørn’s rib. “Do you just… hand them out to everyone who comes through?”
“Not everyone. Only those who look as if they might succeed.” Neksha nodded at the mumiya with the chest for them to set it beside the weapons. “The Red Death weapons are easy enough to retrieve from the Ossuary. The viracocha will not touch them.”
“It doesn’t kill them in one hit?” Aeson asked.
“It does, but hitting them is the hard part. And there is a chance the weapons wi
ll be destroyed. They are very old. Death’s Essence within them has grown weak and volatile. But they will serve you better than any weapon from your world.”
The two mumiya with the chest laid it down carefully beside the weapons. Taking turns, they each lifted the hinged jaws in a specific pattern. The bones were both the lock and key. After a moment, something clicked inside the chest, and the lid rose on its own.
“Keep what you wear,” Neksha said, “but wear us over you.”
Neksha went to the chest and removed four bundles of bindings that were held together by a tendon in the place of rope. Each one was dirty, blood-splattered, and so covered in markings that the bindings were no longer white but black. They’d been used, and they’d been used hard.
“For you, Elizabeth, Epsust’s bindings. She was the first to wear the bindings. She was said to be the one who built this village.” He handed the wraps to her. “Two thousand have worn it since.”
Elizabeth gulped, and took the bindings into her arms. “T-Thank you, yeah?”
“Aeson,” Neksha said, going to him at his hideaway, “these are the bindings of Nakht. She was said to be the one who discovered how to grow the crops and animals within our buildings. One thousand and seventy-three have worn it since.”
Aeson, staring at Vrana, took the bindings.
Neksha picked up two bundles of bindings and said to the Skeleton, “They would be wasted on you.”
“Most things are,” the Skeleton said, “but thanks for saying it.”
To Vrana, Neksha offered the two bundles of bindings. “You’re a… big bird.”
The Skeleton cackled.
Elizabeth bit into her thumb.
Even Aeson cracked a smile.
“Two will be needed to cover you.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking them from him. “Sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”
Sarcasm lost on Neksha, he continued on. “These bindings belonged to Rai and Mer-Neith. Those women discovered the lake outside and made contact with Earth after the Trauma. Combined, over ten thousand have worn those bindings since.”
“Ten thousand…” Vrana thought of Geharra and the ten thousand who’d died there to see the Red Worm summoned. “Most cultures would keep things like this locked up.”