Black Halo

by Sykes, Sam

  ‘Not enough to know that the Librarians are the arm of the Venarium.’ His eyelid twitched. Crimson light poured out in flickering flames. ‘The duties of the Venarium supersede the necessity of lunch.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen that trick before.’ Argaol waved a hand dismissively. ‘I know enough of wizards to know they have limits. Tell me, Mighty and Terrifying Librarian, do you know how to pilot a ship?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see. And do you have enough wicked hoojoo, or whatever it is that makes your eyes do that, in you to move a ship the size of the Riptide by yourself?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Then it would seem the duties of the Venarium can wait until I catch something scaly and full of meat, then,’ Argaol muttered. ‘Round up the crew, if whatever weird stuff you do allows you to do that, but neither the Riptide nor myself are moving until I get some nice, salted fish in my gut.’

  ‘Terms accepted.’

  The sound of footsteps did not come, as Argaol anticipated. Rather, there was the sound of cloth shuffling. It was unusual enough that it demanded the captain open his eyes again in time to spy the man pulling a piece of paper folded to resemble a crane from his coat pocket.

  It rested daintily in the man’s dark palm for a moment before he leaned over and muttered something, as if whispering a secret to it. His eyes flashed bright, as did the tiny smear upon the crane’s parchment. It fluttered briefly in his palm, imbued with a sudden glowing life, and leapt into the air.

  Argaol watched it, at a loss for words, as it glided on a trail of red light, descending into the waters of the harbour. It vanished without a splash, its glow dimming as it slid beneath the green-and-blue depths.

  Behind him, he heard Bralston take two steps backward.

  The water erupted in a vast pillar of foam, forcing up with it a cacophonous explosion that tore the harbour’s tranquility apart. The fish, their mouths gaping in silent screams, eyes wide in unblinking surprise, tumbled through the air like falling stars. They seemed to hang there for a moment before collapsing, flopping in their last throes of life, upon the deck and into the sea.

  Argaol blinked, saltwater peeling off his brow, and turned to Bralston. The wizard smiled back at him, then gave a gentle kick to the flopping creature at his insultingly dry feet and sent it skidding to Argaol.

  ‘I’ll be back within the hour,’ he said. ‘I’ll see if I can’t find you some salt.’

  Fourteen

  THE MANY CORPSES

  When he discovered it, Lenk christened his vessel the Nag.

  It seemed fitting enough to name it after a dying beast of burden, anyway. Though he couldn’t quite recall any diseased mare he had ever seen in as pathetic a condition as his former ship, spared no indignity by the Akaneeds or whatever god had sent them, was in.

  Its two pieces had washed ashore together, lying upon the beach like wooden skeletons of long-deceased sea beasts. Their shattered timbers reached up, as if in plea to an unsympathetic sky, desperate for something to pull them free of the sand they sank farther into with every rising wave. Their reeking, rotting ribs clouded the air with unseen stench, and what remained of a sail flapped in the breeze, trying to escape this crumbling hell and flee upon the wind. Through the dunes, a dying river snaked from the distant forest to serve as a resting place for the wreckage, slipping through its shattered wood as it emptied into the sea.

  Lenk could take some macabre solace in the fact that it had found a use as a battlefield for beach vermin. Crabs and legged eels slithered and scuttled in and out of its cracks and holes, desperately trying to avoid the watching eyes of seagulls and screaming in salty, silent breaths when they were caught by probing beaks.

  Unable to bear their tiny despairs, Lenk turned his attention to scanning the wreckage, searching for anything of value. He supposed it would have been too much to hope that some supplies might have run aground with the Nag’s corpse. Of course, if anything edible had come ashore, it was likely devoured by one of the many combatants that crawled around the rubble.

  Or, far more likely, Lenk thought, spirited away by some god who isn’t content to smite me with disease and despair. Any divine favour I might have enjoyed came exclusively from Asper’s presence, and she’s …

  He winced, trying not to finish that thought.

  ‘Dead?’ the voice finished for him.

  ‘I was trying to avoid that conclusion,’ Lenk muttered.

  ‘What purpose is born through denial of the inevitable?’

  ‘Hope?’

  ‘Purpose, not delusion.’

  ‘I find myself hard-pressed to argue.’ Lenk stalked closer to the ruined vessel, ignoring the resentful glares the seagulls shot him and the sword he carried. ‘Still, there might be something here … some clue …’

  ‘What could you possibly find here that would make you realise anything you don’t already know?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they left something for me to find.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I said I don’t know.’

  ‘One would think that clueless futility is also a delusion.’

  ‘One would think.’

  ‘The indulgence can’t be healthy, you know.’

  ‘Given that my leg is a festering mass of disease and I’m having a conversation with a symptom of insanity, I’d say I’m well beyond concern for health, mental or otherwise.’

  ‘Did you ever stop to think that perhaps my presence is a blessing?’

  ‘In between you causing me to look like a lunatic in front of people and telling me to kill people, no, that thought hadn’t occurred to me.’

  ‘Consider this: You’re currently searching through rotting timber when you should be seeking medicinal aid. The captain sent his mate to pick you up. You and the tome, do you recall?’

  ‘I recall the giant, man-eating sea snakes that complicated matters a bit.’

  ‘Regardless, even if you’ve lost the tome, there would be medicine, supplies aboard the ship they sent. We could recuperate, recover, and then search—’

  ‘For the others …’ Lenk muttered, scratching his chin. ‘You’re concerned about them and my well-being. Does the fever affect you, too?’

  ‘The tome. We must find the tome. As for the others … stop this. They are weak. They are dead. We must concern ourselves with our well-being.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I know that this ship was wood and metal and the snakes destroyed it. What chance does flesh and bone have?’

  ‘I survived.’

  ‘Because of me, as you continue to do. Because of me. Now take heed and listen.’

  ‘There’s still a chance. There has to be something here. Something that can—’

  ‘There is something here.’

  ‘Where?’

  The voice didn’t have to reply. Lenk didn’t have to look hard. He spied it, struggling to break free in the flow and flee into the ocean. His eyes went wide, a chill swept over his fevered body. Suddenly, the sun dimmed, his blood ran thin in his body, and his voice could barely rise from his throat.

  ‘No …’ he whispered.

  Kataria’s feather, floating in the water, pulled by the flow as the smooth stick attached to it held it captive.

  ‘No … no, no. No!’ Lenk swept up to it, cradling it in trembling hands as though it might break at any moment. ‘No … she … she’d never leave this behind. She always wears them.’

  ‘Wore them.’

  ‘Shut up! YOU SHUT UP!’ Lenk snarled, bashing his fist against his temple. ‘This can’t be it. She wouldn’t have left this. She … they …’ He swallowed hard, a lump of boiling lead tumbling down his throat. ‘All …’

  ‘Dead.’

  The word was given a sudden, heavy weight. It drove him to his knees, pulled the sword from his hand, crushed the blood from his face like dirty water from a sponge.

  ‘Dead …’

  ‘Dead,’ the voice repeated. ‘Another blessi
ng you will come to realise in time.’

  ‘Please …’ Lenk gasped, his voice wet and heavy in his throat. ‘Please don’t say that.’

  ‘She would have killed you, you know.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘She said as much.’

  The voices flashed through his mind, as hot and tense as his fevered brow. All he had left to remember them by – her by – was the scorn that had dripped from her lips when they last spoke. The memories, the pleasantries, faded into nothingness and left one voice behind.

  ‘I want to feel like myself.’

  ‘And you can only do that by ignoring me?’

  ‘No, I can only do that by killing you!’

  It continued to ring, cathedral bells of cracked brass. He clenched his skull, trying to stop it from echoing inside his head. He could not let go of the noise. It was all he had left.

  ‘Kill you …’ he repeated to himself. ‘Kill you … kill you …’

  ‘She would have,’ the voice replied. ‘But that’s not important now. Now, we must rise up, we must—’

  It faded, drowned in a flood of logic and reason that swept into Lenk’s brain on a hatefully reasonable tone.

  Of course she would have, he thought. She’s a shict. You’re a human. They live to kill us. This voice, familiarly cynical and harsh, he realised was Denaos’ own, seeping up from some gash in his mind. What, you thought she’d give up her whole race for you?

  Maybe it’s a blessing, a voice like Asper’s said inside him. The one favour the Gods will show you. You don’t have to worry about her anymore, do you? You don’t have to worry about anything …

  Well, it’s just logical, isn’t it? Dreadaeleon asked, more decisive and snide than ever. Put two opposing forces in the same atmosphere and one destroys the other. You can’t change that. It’s just how it works.

  Your life only became more meaningless when you centred it on her, Gariath growled. You deserve to die.

  ‘I deserve it …’

  ‘Self-pity is also a …’ The voice paused suddenly, its tone shifting to cold anger. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I deserve it.’

  Lenk reached up and took the feather, the last action he took before he rose without compulsion from his body. He turned to stare out over the sea, clutching the white object close to him. Then, his feet beginning to move with numb mechanic, he walked toward the hungry, frothing sea.

  ‘What are you doing?’ The voice’s demand didn’t penetrate the numbness in his body. Whatever eyes it had, it must have seen the shore looming up. ‘Stop! This is not our purpose!’

  ‘You were right,’ Lenk said, a smile creeping across his face. ‘She’s dead. They’re all dead. We’ll be together again, though. Companions forever.’

  ‘Listen to me. LISTEN. Something is wrong.’

  ‘It’s over.’ The young man shook his head. ‘I can’t do this anymore. Not without them. Not without her.’

  ‘Sacrifice isn’t noble if it hinders everything else. We have much to do. What of purpose? What of vengeance?’

  No more words. No more arguing with them, any of them. His willpower seeped out of his leg on weeping pus. Hope could no longer carry him. Futility could no longer fuel him. Surrender, the promise of an end to the blood and the pain, drove him forward, inevitably toward the sea.

  ‘Resist,’ the voice commanded. ‘Fight. We are stronger.’

  No more words. The waves rose up to meet him. He would never stop walking until his lungs burst with salt and his flesh was picked clean by hungry fish.

  ‘You do not get to die here,’ the voice uttered, cold and commanding. ‘That is not your decision.’

  No more words.

  He felt a sudden, overwhelming cold, his fever coursing out of him on a frost-laden breath. His legs locked up beneath him; ice water coursed through his veins and sent him to the ground.

  ‘I won’t let you.’

  So close to release, Lenk reached out with fingers trembling to grasp the earth and pull him into sweet, blue freedom. Freedom from Miron, from Greenhair, freedom from anyone and everything that had made him think she should have died for leather and paper.

  ‘Why …?’ He felt his tears as ice on his face as his body trembled and folded over itself. ‘I can’t do this. Just let me die … I want to …’

  ‘It does not matter what you want,’ the voice replied, unsympathetic. ‘All that matters is what you must do.’

  The pounding in his head faded, freeing his ears to the sound of feet scraping against sand, alien voices rising over the sandy ridge. Alien, but familiar.

  ‘Hake-yo! Man-eh komah owah!’

  ‘And what you must do … is hide.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘You don’t get to make that decision.’

  He could barely feel the sand beneath his feet or his spine bending as he plucked up the sword. He barely noticed; his entire willpower, what didn’t ooze out of him, was concentrated in his fingers as he held desperately onto the feather. He wasn’t even aware of moving behind the sandy dune until he was finally there, his numb body forced to the earth as whatever force moved his legs suddenly gave out.

  No sooner had his belly pressed against the dirt than the first green scalp came rising over the opposite ridge. A pair of wide, amber eyes shifted across the wreckage. A satisfied snort emerged from a long, green snout. Two long, clawed feet slid down the sand and into the valley, their tracks concealed by the long tail dragging behind it.

  That the creature didn’t notice his presence spoke more of its inattention than his subtlety. Even amidst the beach scrub, a head of silver hair couldn’t have been hard to spot. He lay still; his body bore obedience for only one voice.

  The lizardman turned about, cast its glower over the ridge and snarled.

  ‘Nah-ah. Shii man-eh.’

  ‘Shaa?’ came an indignant hiss from beyond the dune.

  Three additional green bodies came clambering over the ridge. Lenk took greater note of them now, particularly the clubs studded with jagged teeth and savage machetes hanging from their loincloths. A decidedly vicious improvement from the sharpened sticks they had carried last night, but that only brought a grim smile to Lenk’s face.

  Their weapons were so sharp, so brutal-looking. They could eviscerate him in the wink of an eye, end the suffering in a horrific chop and smattering of red and fleshy pink chunks on the sand. It would be so quick, so easy.

  His felt his leg spasm on the sand.

  Despite his mounting excitement, he thought it odd that they hadn’t carried those tools last night. Even more curious was the fact that they seemed taller than before, their lanky musculature packed tightly under taut green flesh. Tattoos as ferocious as their weaponry ran up and down their bodies in alternating hoops, jagged bands and cat-like strips of red and black ink. Still, it wasn’t until Lenk noticed the space under their long snouts that the realisation dawned upon him.

  ‘Beardless,’ he whispered. ‘These aren’t the same ones.’

  ‘These are warriors. Look at the way they move.’

  Lenk took note immediately. No step was uncalculated, no amber scowl was wasted. They stalked around the wreckage of the Nag with gazes far more predatory than the lizards from the other night.

  Killers’ gazes, Lenk thought. They can smell my blood. They hunger for it. They’re violent, bloodthirsty creatures. His grin grew so large that he had to bite his lower lip to stifle it. Gods, but they’re going to kill me so quick.

  He felt his hands tighten around the scrub grass in ecstasy. If the voice could feel the plants, too, it made no indication.

  ‘That one,’ it muttered. ‘The one with the bow. That’s the leader.’

  Scarcely a revelation. That one lingered behind the three others with the cool casualness of command against its companions’ predatory vigilance. Its polished black bow hung off its shoulder with the easy relationship of a master and his weapon. Any remaining doubt was quickly dispelle
d by the fact that its tattoos covered more of its flesh than any other lizard present.

  ‘Cho-a?’ it called out, apparent disinterest in its voice.

  ‘Na-ah!’ One of them, the one that had first arrived, looked up with a snarl. ‘Man-eh shii ko ah okah!’

  ‘Shaa,’ the leader said, waving its scaly hand. It jerked its head back toward the ridge they had come from. ‘Igeh ah Shalake. Na-ah man-eh hakaa.’

  The other two lizardmen looked up from their own inquiries into the wreckage with nods. They grunted once, then stalked away from the debris, past the leader and up the ridge, vanishing behind it. The leader sighed and folded its arms over its inked chest as it stared at the obstinate one expectantly.

  ‘Mad-eh kawa yo!’ it snarled, jerking its head back to the ridge. ‘Kawa!’

  ‘Sia-ah!’ the other one hissed, scanning the wreckage with desperate intensity. ‘Shii ko a man-eh!’

  ‘They look agitated,’ Lenk whispered, unconsciously slithering a little closer. He eyed the quiver of brightly coloured arrows hanging off the leader’s back and his voice took on a hysterical edge. ‘Absolutely irate, even. How close do you think we’d have to be?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For him to put one of those arrows right between my eyes.’

  ‘It won’t happen. They’re leaving now, look.’

  Lenk bit back a despairing shriek, or it was bitten back for him by whatever numbed his throat. He didn’t care about anything save for the fact that the insistent lizard-man’s tattooed body shrank with a sudden sigh. Looking dejected, it turned to go and follow the leader back up the ridge.

  Until something on the ground caught its eye.

  ‘Yes,’ Lenk squealed, ‘yes, yes!’

  ‘No!’ the voice countered with a chilling anger.

  Lenk followed the creature’s yellow gaze past the gutted timbers and scampering crabs, onto the moist sand.

  To the perfectly preserved indentation of his footprint.

  ‘Don’t move,’ the voice warned. ‘They haven’t seen us yet.’

  ‘Well, we can fix that.’

  ‘No! DO NOT—’

  The voice’s command was lost in his laughter. Its control vanished in a fevered surge as Lenk rose to his feet. He spread his arms wide in a deranged welcome, his sword flashing in the sunlight and catching the attention of the creatures below.