by Sam Sykes
He sighed centuries out into the darkness.
“And you returned her key, brother.”
Lenk looked to his satchel. Even in the darkness, even obscured by the pouch, the barest glimpse of the tome’s cover revealed a blackness that refused to be obscured. If anything, it grew darker, heavier, more significant. An eager child perking up when it knew someone was talking about it.
“The tome. . you wrote it?”
“Long ago. He knew that the gods would need to be challenged one day, as the demons were, that tyrants could never be traded for tyrants. And he told us to write the book, with all the knowledge of the demons and mortalkind and all that it meant to fear and hope. It was intended to stay in our hands.”
He laughed the sounds of ice breaking.
“And he was right. Yours are the only hands left, brother.”
“What is it you think I’m going to do with it?”
“There is no thinking, brother, for there is no question. There is only certainty and his will. You will use the tome as you are meant to, as he wills you to.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Reiteration is a poor defense against inevitability, brother. All that he speaks shall pass. He, the God of Gods, told us our duty, so we carried it out. He told us to kill, and we did. He said we would be betrayed, we were, as you knew you would be.”
He did not look behind him. It did not help. He could feel the hurt in Kataria’s stare as keenly as any metal.
“That was a fear. The same as any man of flesh and bone would have.”
“It was a certainty.”
“If it was certain, then I would have accepted it.”
“Denial is a poor shield, brother.”
“And a great weapon. You swing it hard enough, it breaks just about anything. Especially certainty.”
“We heard you when you came to this land. We heard your fears through him and they spoke loudly.”
“And what do you hear now?”
The man was silent.
“I sent him away,” Lenk said. “I rejected him. I rejected everything he offered me, every price he asked. I’m free of him.” He felt the pain in his shoulder. He did not reach for it. “I’m free of that ruler.”
“He does not rule. He speaks. He blesses us, tells us what must be done and gives us the strength to do it.”
“Sounds like any other tyrant masquerading as benevolent.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps he knew that it was the price we had to pay for the rest of mankind. It’s a great power, brother. It came at a price we paid willingly.”
“Not me.”
“Then you will die.”
“I haven’t yet.”
“You haven’t accepted it yet.”
“You talk about leaving gods and rulers behind and in the same breath tell me about inevitability and fate.”
“They are not the same thing. He does not come to us and tell us this is how it must be. We felt the same that you did, the same fears, the same urges, the same knowledge that those around us loathed us and hated us and feared us. He does not come to us, brother. We call out to him, whether we know it or not.”
Lenk looked to Kataria. Instinctively. Shamefully. He looked to her and tried to convince himself that it was the voice inside his head that had said all those things about her and told him she would kill him. He looked to her and mouthed, noiselessly, “it was not me.”
She looked back. He could not bear her stare.
“I came here to get the book away,” Lenk said, turning back to the man in the ice. “Is there a way out of here or not?”
“Walk amongst your brothers. Down there in the darkness and the cold. Water carved these tunnels. It will lead you.”
“Where?”
“There is only one way.”
In the distance, he could hear something. Echoes of war cries carried on the gloom. The rattle of armor. Growing louder.
Whether the corpse was being intentionally cryptic or not, he was right. There was only one way.
They made their way down into the pit, amongst the many frozen bodies and the dead. And still the man in the ice spoke, his voice as clear and close as it had been a moment ago.
“He still calls to you, brother. He scratches at the back of your head. He tells me this. He can heal you. He can make you strong. If only you let him back in.”
He almost turned to look back at them and answer. He would have, if Kataria were not right there, seizing his neck, forcing his eyes down and his feet forward.
“You’re not them,” she snarled.
“Down there, brother, you will find him,” the voice called after him. “Or you will find her.”
And his voice echoed in the darkness. And his lights lingered in the darkness. As they walked farther, following the sound of rushing water.
I’m doing it.
The hope came, despite the blood trickling into her eye.
I’m stronger than her.
Despite the muscles in her arm breaking beneath her skin.
I can do this.
All ten of her fingers wrapped around Xhai’s fist, keeping it and the massive blade it clenched trembling over their heads. Xhai’s boots scraped against the rock. Her cursing stained the chamber’s still air. She pushed against the priestess and found the woman unyielding.
I can do it. I am doing it. I’m going to beat her and I’m going to survive and I’m going to save Denaos.
The thought came with a sudden waver.
Denaos.
She tossed the scantest glance over her shoulder, trying to catch the barest glimpse of the rogue.
It wasn’t clear how much of a mistake that was until she felt the netherling’s boot. It slammed into her belly, shattering her grasp and hurling her away. Somehow, though, she summoned just enough to curse him.
“Even-” she paused to gasp, collapsing to a knee, “-when I think about the bastard. .”
“I don’t appreciate that kind of negativity.”
His hands were on her arms, hoisting her roughly to her feet, heedless of her glower. “Doesn’t make it less true.” She tried to find her breath. “She’s strong.”
“I really hadn’t figured that out when she beat me hard enough to make piss come out my nose.”
“But she’s not invincible,” Asper said. “If one of us can occupy her while the other one. .” Asper paused, watching him run past her. “Where the hell are you going?”
He didn’t have to answer. The loud cackle that came from behind her did that well enough.
Scantest glance, barest glimpse. Sharp teeth in a wide, black-lipped smile. And she was running, too.
Breathless, staggering, struggling to stay on her feet. The sikkhun trotted after her, clacking claws and giggling wildly. It could have taken her in one pounce, but chased her with all the urgency of a child skipping through a field of dandelions.
There was, apparently, no aspect of netherling society that wasn’t, in some way, completely messed up.
“Thakh qai yush!” Xhai’s voice carried across the chamber. The sikkhun broke off suddenly, galloping toward her.
Asper came to a halt at the shattered doorway of the chamber where Denaos was trying to catch his breath and leaned against it, doing the same. She glanced at the beast as the Carnassial leapt atop its back.
“That thing could have killed me,” she gasped. “But it didn’t.” She looked at Denaos. “You should be dead by now.”
“Dead by the sikkhun or some other reason?” The rogue spat. “Not that I disagree.”
“Why didn’t it kill you while I was fighting her?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You don’t say,” she muttered.
“She doesn’t want me to die unless she can do it herself. And she’s not going to kill me unless she can take her time with it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Did I not just tell you it’s complicated? Look, I know her, so I know how to get out of this.”
“Listening.”
“Well, I don’t know it now. Give me time to think. Keep her busy.”
“Why do I have to keep her busy?”
“Because she wants to kill you first.”
“AKH ZEKH LAKH!”
Like that wasn’t obvious. The ground shook with the sikkhun. It was focused now, jaws wide and laughing as it charged toward them. Xhai spurred it on, sword over her head, snarl painted on her face.
They split, Denaos running one way, Asper the other. True to his word and Xhai’s fury, the Carnassial whirled her beast upon the priestess. It squealed in delight, rampaging after her.
She twisted and turned, forcing it to follow her erratic movement with its clumsily eager bulk. But each time she darted away, the beast had a smaller gap to close.
“Do something!” she screamed.
In answer, a stray rock came flying. It struck the Carnassial upon the brow. She grunted, rubbed her head. The sikkhun did not stop.
“What the hell was that?” Asper shrieked.
“I said give me time! That was fifteen breaths, tops!” the rogue cried back.
It might have been worth it, she thought, to try to strangle Denaos before the sikkhun killed her. That might be more satisfying. But before she could catch sight of him, she saw something else.
The statue with the outstretched hand, lying amidst the rubble in the archway. Cracked, but not broken like the pillars. Sturdy stuff, that particular stone. Sturdy enough to give her a single, desperate idea.
She ran toward it. She felt its breath on her heels. She felt its laughter in her spine. She felt its jaws widening.
She leapt to the side.
The sikkhun’s giggle twisted into a shriek. Stone screamed and she could feel it, through the cold earth and in her stomach.
Asper picked herself up and turned about.
The sikkhun lay before the pile of rubble, whining pitifully, trying to scrabble to its feet with a brain that couldn’t remember how feet worked. Shards of granite jutted from its face in thick points from brow to snout. Its ears folded against its head as it whimpered, staggering away, drooling a thick black liquid.
Not dead.
It wasn’t half as gruesome as what had happened to Xhai. Asper looked up and saw the dark red streak painted upon the wall. The netherling slid down the stone on a thick trail, limp as a slug, to settle upon the rubble. The Carnassial groaned.
Not dead.
She should be worried about that.
She should be looking for Denaos, she should be reaching for the sword in her belt and going to finish Xhai off, she should be doing anything but staring at the pile of rubble and the body upon it.
But she couldn’t do anything but stare at the shattered rock.
And the two black eyes staring back at her.
The statue lay in pieces, divided neatly down the middle. The extended left arm lay upon the ground. The head lay atop the rubble.
And between them, a body lay.
A man made out of paper. Long and skinny, ragged around the edges, cut out of a parchment with a sticky pair of scissors. It did not lie upon the rubble. It unfurled. Its limbs had been folded to fit in the statue and now its limbs spread out, twitching, like a wadded-up piece of paper uncurling itself.
Its only solid pieces were its eyes. Black. Glossy. Alive. And blinking.
And it was looking at her.
And she felt its gaze in her, in her arms, the pain searing, the blood boiling, the skin tightening. As though something inside her was looking back at it. As though something inside her was desperately trying to get out of a statue made of flesh.
It moved. All that it had left, everything in it, pooled in the tip of a long left finger that twitched exactly one-half of the length of a hair from a man about to die, to point briefly at her.
And she felt herself erupt from within.
The stone beneath her. The blood weeping from her temple. His arms around her as she fell. She could feel none of it. The world swept into her, all the feeling drawing into her blood, beneath her skin, setting her on fire.
It knew her. The thing in the statue knew her. It knew she hated the taste of alcohol. It knew she slept with a candle burning for fourteen years of her life. It knew she once held hands with a girl named Taire. And it reached into her with a voice without words and said with a smile without a mouth.
How are you, my friend?
She was screaming. She was screaming and she couldn’t hear anything else above it as she lay back into his arms.
Denaos wasn’t talking. Maybe there was something in his eyes, some question he wanted to ask, some fear he wanted to voice. But she couldn’t tell. He was wearing a mask now, pretending to understand, pretending that she needed nothing more than his arms around her, pretending that he was the kind of man that could pretend hard enough and everyone else would believe it.
And maybe it worked. A little.
She found her breath. She held it inside her. She tried not to feel. She tried not to hear.
“Get away from her.”
A voice from the rubble, broken and dead and pretending it wasn’t. Xhai came staggering out. Her neck bent to one side. Her face was a mess of blood. But she held a sword so tightly the bones of her ruined hand were set aright. And through her broken teeth, she still snarled.
“That’s not how it ends,” she growled. “That’s not how I die.”
Denaos looked down at Asper for a moment. There was something else there. Something that told her that it hurt him to ease her down to the floor, to let her go and to rise up alone.
“It’s something you get to choose?” Denaos asked, turning to the Carnassial.
“You chose. When you hurt me.”
“I’ve hurt a lot of people.”
“You chose to.”
He hesitated. A mask dropped. “Yeah.”
She continued to stagger toward him like a dead thing pretending to be alive. When she shook her head, there was a cracking noise.
“You think you chose to. But there isn’t a choice for you and me. Even if we didn’t have masters, it would end this way. I knew how I would die when I met you.”
“How do you die?”
“After I kill you.”
“I could fight.” Denaos was walking, leading her away from Asper, who was clutching her arm, holding herself from eruption. “I’ve got knives.”
“You couldn’t kill me before.”
“I tried my damnedest.”
“If you had, I’d be dead. No. You knew I’d kill you. Because you’ve known for a while now that you deserve to die. Not clean. Not peacefully. You knew I should be the one to do it.”
Denaos was silent. When she smiled, the skin around her mouth tore.
“Because I was going to make it hurt.”
Maybe there was something in him that knew she was right. Maybe he weighed the odds of escaping alive. Maybe he had figured a way out of it and maybe he hadn’t.
But he stood there. He held his arms out wide. Challenging her. Welcoming her. It was all the same. The netherling smiled, lowered the spear.
“QAI ZHOTH!” the scream was ecstasy, the scream was agony. She charged. “AKH ZEKH LAKH!” Boots thundered. Voice thundered. “ZAHN QAI YUSH!” She charged.
The spear found air.
He fell.
The spear found flesh. And a scream to go with it.
The sikkhun had been reflecting its mistress. It had charged with her, from behind. It hadn’t the strength to laugh. She hadn’t the discipline to stop. The spear was lodged in its gaping mouth, its tongue flailing, voice warbling as it squirmed and tried to dislodge the ivory shaft. It shrieked, clawing at the spear as it reared back and tore it from her grasp.
It shrieked as its skin turned black and shrank around its skull. It shrieked as the spear ate the warmth, ate the voice, ate the life from it. And when it collapsed, it was silent, still and cold.
And so was Xhai.
“I killed that sikkhun’s mother to get him when he was weak,” she said to the silence. “I fed it the first thing I ever killed. I raised it on blood. It was. . mine.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have killed it, then,” Denaos said, picking himself up and dusting himself off.
His hand brushed his vest, a dagger all but leapt to his fingers. He whirled, the blade angling for the Carnassial’s flesh. It found metal, a gauntlet clenching his wrist. His eyes found hers, white and rimmed with the blood seeping from the cuts upon her face.
“No.”
She hauled him from his feet, into the air.
“No more.”
Her fist trembled as she tightened it around his wrist.
“We are done with this.”
Bone snapped. His wrist bent, his voice was torn from his throat in a shriek. She silenced him, drawing her fist back and ramming it forward. Her fist sang a droning rhythm, an iron harmony as she struck him again and again in a song that spoke of a broken nose, a split lip, a swollen eye.
And when it ended, she held no killer in her hand, no creature that had once harmed her. And it was a broken thing she tossed aside to land beside Asper.
The pain that wracked her was echoed in his stare. In a single, squinted eye rimmed with blood that wept from the gashes upon his face. A single eye. Dark. Glistening. Alive.
Barely.
“I can’t move, Denaos,” Asper whispered.
His voice escaped on a red groan. “I know.”
“It’ll see me. It knows me. It hurts. I can’t.”
He pressed his good hand against the floor, began to push himself up. “I know.”
“You can’t, either. She’ll kill you.”
He coughed. Blood wept from his mouth. “I know.”
“Denaos, don’t.”
He rose to his feet, staggering. “I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t.”
A dead man who didn’t know it. He got up, tucking his broken wrist beneath his good arm. He turned to face Xhai, who wore a disappointed frown, as though she had hoped he would do something else.