by Alec Hutson
She could see the babe’s features more clearly now. Black veins writhed beneath its pale skin, and behind its tangled hair she could see that its eyes had been gouged out . . .
Cho Lin woke.
She lay on stale rushes scattered over stone. The cold she had suffered in her dream was real – her limbs tingled, and she could barely feel her fingers and toes. With some effort she pushed herself into a seated position, brushing away the dry blades of grass tangled in her hair. She coughed wetly, spitting out flecks of the sickness that was clogging her chest and making her breathing ragged.
Cho Lin crept closer to the edge of her cell. No food had been left as she slept – the few bones strewn beside the black iron bars were the same ones she’d been gnawing on for the last two days. Her stomach clenched as she examined them yet again, hoping she’d missed some tiny morsel of flesh or forgotten to crack one open for the marrow within. Nothing. In frustration she hurled a rib through the bars, clattering it against the far wall.
At the noise, a shape stirred in another of the cells.
“Jan?” Cho Lin cried hoarsely, grabbing hold of the bars – but only briefly, as the intense cold of the iron soon made her let go.
The gray light suffusing the prison’s lone window did not illuminate the deeper reaches of the chamber. In the gloom, Jan was just a featureless mound, and she couldn’t make out very much. But still her heart leapt to see him move, ever so slightly. For the past day he had not responded to her, and she’d feared he had died.
“Jan, speak to me.”
No answer. He’d been delirious after the Skein had thrown them in here, maddened by the pain of losing his eye. A moment of clarity had briefly returned, and she’d convinced him to try and clean the wounds made by the demon’s claws with a splash of the spirit their captors had brought one evening. The memory of his screams still haunted her. He’d been growing weaker since then, barely touching the scraps tossed inside his cell. The last words he’d spoken had been a rambling, fractured apology to a woman named Liralyn, begging for her forgiveness.
Cho Lin slumped, struggling to keep her despair at bay. Where was the hope? They were prisoners of a cruel and savage people. Even if they escaped these cells, safety was a thousand li away, across a harsh and frozen land. And the Betrayers were here, worshipped by the Skein as avatars of their darkest god. The demons knew who she was; they would never let her leave this place. She had failed.
“Jan . . .”
Wood scraped on stone. Cho Lin’s stomach twisted as the prison’s iron-banded door opened, the film of ice that had formed along its hinges and edges cracking. Food.
But it was not their gaoler, and when she saw who had come, she couldn’t hold back a whimper of fear. It was the stranger, the one garbed like a southerner. He wore only a thin linen doublet, frilled where it hemmed his wrists and neck, and breeches that left his ankles bare above his leather shoes. Simple clothes like a tradesman might wear in warmer lands. No furs, no heavy wool.
He should be dead from the cold.
And yet there was no sign that it bothered him at all. His face was not empty; a hunger lurked in his eyes. His cheeks were sunken, his hair lank and ragged, and his hands constantly twitched and clenched, as if he had to restrain himself from reaching for her. Or, at least, that was what she had seen before. Today he carried something, and that tiny flame of hope she’d been nurturing nearly flickered out.
The Sword of Cho. Its scabbard rested in the crook of his arms, laid so that its black-dragonbone hilt could not touch his flesh. He held it gingerly, away from his body.
Her attention was so focused on the sword that at first she did not see the other figure that had entered the prison trailing behind the southerner. He was pale and slightly stooped, wrapped in a gray robe, and so emaciated as to almost resemble one of the corpses she’d seen in her dream. His unnatural eyes were a vivid shade of blue she had never encountered before. Yet despite the intensity of his stare he looked to be younger than her, and she had not yet seen her twentieth winter.
Lask, the shaman of the White Worm.
His thin lips pulled back into a cold smile when he noticed her staring at him. Cho Lin could not keep from shivering – never had she seen such emptiness. She could not set aside the feeling that he was just a husk of a man, and some terrible, ancient presence had come to inhabit his body.
Lask did not speak to her, sweeping past the silent man carrying the Sword of Cho and coming to crouch beside Jan’s cell. One of his hands closed around an iron bar, but he showed no sign of discomfort from the searing cold.
“Sorcerer,” he murmured in a soft voice shriven of emotion.
Jan did not stir.
The shaman waited. Looming beside him, the southerner was absolutely motionless. Cho Lin’s panic started to rise as she watched them waiting so patiently. It was far more terrifying than if they had threatened or raged or mocked. Finally, she could take it no longer.
“He’s dying,” she said desperately. “Please. He needs a healer.”
Lask did not turn to look at her. “All things die.”
“But this doesn’t have to be his time. He just needs warmth and food. His wounds cleaned. He knows many things . . . he knows secrets about this place. He claimed to be a sorcerer of Min-Ceruth.”
The shaman reached into his robes and withdrew a wadded piece of cloth. “His death is not in this room today. He is strong, the strongest I have ever felt. A deep, deep well to drink from.” Lask twisted around, and his unnatural eyes found hers again. “Gen thrik a len, monek vash tenen a polvinach. This is a saying of my people: all things die, and in the time of sweet decay the Worm feasts.” He unwrapped the cloth in his hand, and she could see something small and dark nestled within its folds. “Existence is a circle. We live, we die, and our strength is passed to what consumes us.”
Her blood was thundering in her ears. What was he talking about? What did he have in his hand? Cho Lin hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until the shaman turned away from her, and then she drew in a shuddering sob.
“Attend to me, sorcerer,” Lask said calmly. When Jan still did not respond, the shaman beckoned with a long, thin finger. An invisible force slid Jan’s unmoving body across the prison floor, then raised him up so that his slumped head was nearly touching the iron bars. His slack face was only a few span from the shaman, who had leaned closer as his sorcery drew Jan near.
Cho Lin gasped when she saw how the demon had ravaged Jan’s face. The Betrayer’s claws had carved deep furrows from his temple to his lips, plucking out his right eye and narrowly avoiding taking his nose as well. The empty socket was shadowed, its edges scabbed and oozing pus. Around his neck was the metal collar he’d been wearing when she’d freed him from the tower of the Crimson Queen, the thing he claimed kept him from using his sorcery. In the chamber of blue ice, Lask had humbled Jan after removing it, and then shackled him again.
“Wake,” Lask commanded, and a ripple went through Jan. His eye fluttered open, his head slowly lifting. Cho Lin could see in his face the fever that was consuming him, and she wondered if he thought he was still dreaming.
Jan swallowed and licked his lips. “What are you?” he whispered hoarsely, struggling to focus on the shaman crouched beside him.
Lask reached through the bars and cupped Jan’s chin. “I am the end of your journey, sorcerer. You should be honored: it is a rare thing to meet the one who will inherit your strength.” He let the cloth in his other hand flutter to the floor. Between his fingers he held a small, gnarled object.
Cho Lin moaned when she realized what it was. No. This was madness . . . no one would do such a thing.
Still holding Jan’s chin, staring at him with a terrifying intensity, Lask brought the withered remnant of Jan’s lost eye to his lips. He placed it in his mouth and began to chew slowly. Cho Lin could not stop herself from ret
ching when he finally swallowed. Jan showed no sign that he understood what was happening, his gaze unfocusing as he slipped once more into his delirium.
Lask let go of Jan’s chin and the sorcerer collapsed again. Then the shaman sat back on his haunches, raising his face to the ceiling. His breath plumed the frozen air, coiling in the trickle of wan light. It seemed to shimmer, like there was something more that he was expelling from deep within his body.
“Such power,” he said softly, his voice thick. “It burns so hot.”
With gasping, hitching sobs Cho Lin scrambled across the stone floor, as far away from this madman as she could get. The sound seemed to rouse the shaman, who turned to her once again. A bruise-colored blush now stained his sallow cheeks.
“The Worm creeps closer to you as well, spider-eater.” Lask’s lips twisted into a cruel smile. “But you should not worry, for it will not be I who feasts on you.”
Cho Lin’s gaze flickered to the man who held the sword of her ancestors. He had not moved in the slightest, and yet she could sense his desperate hunger straining towards her.
The shaman rasped a chuckle. “No. Not him, at least not yet. You have drawn the attention of a god, Lady Cho. You should prepare yourself – the Skin Thief once more walks upon this world, and he wishes to meet you.”
Lask reached again into the folds of his robes. The object he drew forth this time was a black crescent that glittered in the pale light. The shaman’s lips pursed, his brow furrowing, and a moment later a slice of the air seemed to shimmer and writhe. The image of another place formed beside the shaman, as if he had opened an invisible door to elsewhere.
Torchlight flickered. This other space was shadowed, but recessed nearby a flame burned. Red light crawled across dark stone and a wooden frame, from which hung the limp body of a man. His shirt was reduced to ragged strips, showing flesh laced with dark welts, and his gray beard looked to be damp, matted with what she suspected was blood. He did not move.
A dark shape occluded the view of the other place, and then a large man in black robes stepped through the portal. Even after he had passed into the prison the wavering vision of the tortured man remained hanging in the air like some gruesome painting.
Cho Lin gasped.
This new stranger was a Shan, and though hugely fat he moved daintily, with an effortless grace that reminded her of her old masters on Red Fang. She guessed he had trained as either a warrior or a dancer. What was he doing here?
Then it struck her, as bracing as a gust of frozen wind: the Raveling. This man must be sworn to that death-cult – a warlock who served the Betrayers. If there were traitors in the bone-shard towers then the threat to the empire was even greater than she had feared. Perhaps this was how the demons had first escaped.
“Who are you?” she called out in Shan, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. “How could you serve them?”
The fat man turned slowly, ignoring her outburst. His gaze slid over Lask and the southerner, lingering on the sprawled body of Jan.
The shaman had dropped to his knees before this stranger, lowering his head.
“Answer me, traitor!” Cho Lin cried. “You’ve sundered your vows. You’ve—”
The Shan’s attention finally settled on her, and her words died in her throat. A cold grip had closed around her neck, and her hands scrabbled at her throat, attempting to pry away the invisible fingers.
“I do not speak your tongue, girl,” the Shan said in Menekarian, dismissing her as he turned to where the shaman knelt. The choking force vanished, and she drew in a shuddering breath.
“Let me see the stone,” the Shan said to Lask, holding out his hand. The shaman gently – reverently – laid the crescent in his palm.
“Remarkable,” the stranger said, holding up a small, gleaming white circle in his other hand, then fitting the curve of black stone over it like it was the moon eclipsing a dark sun. “You carved this?”
Lask nodded, never taking his eyes from the huge Shan standing over him. “With the help of your servants. They showed me how.”
The Shan chuckled. “My servants.” He peered closer at the carvings, as if examining the workmanship. Then he shook his head. “Even the bitch who bound me could not fathom the depths of the riftstone. And yet here, on the edge of the world, a savage in rags and furs has done the impossible and paired a sundered stone again.”
Lask blinked rapidly, as if he was trying to understand the meaning of what the Shan was saying.
“Leave,” the Shan said, gesturing towards the door after handing back the crescent of black stone. “I would speak to them alone.”
The shaman hesitated, ever so slightly, but then he nodded and stood. When he passed the motionless southerner he tugged on his arm, as if telling the man to accompany him.
“No. That thing stays here.”
The shaman cast another curious glance at the Shan, but still he withdrew. When the door clanged shut behind him, the Shan sighed.
“The sorcerer is dangerous,” he said, turning back to her. “But I suppose you’ve guessed this already.”
His black eyes glittered as he stared at her, and Cho Lin’s skin crawled under his scrutiny. There was something unnatural about this man. Something monstrous.
“You’re not from the empire,” she said in Menekarian.
“No.”
“Your family was cast out?”
Another dry chuckle. The Shan wandered close to the southerner and reached out to pluck the Sword of Cho from where it lay across the silent man’s arms. Anger flared in her to see his fingers around the dragonbone hilt.
With a flourish, he ripped away the scabbard, letting it fall and clatter upon the stone. He studied the rippling length of steel with the same interest he had shown the black and white carvings.
“This is the one thing they fear,” he said softly, turning the sword slightly so that the pale light slid along the blade. “A magnificent artifact. I can feel the soul inside, recoiling under my touch. She had a great Talent, though it was never refined.”
The Shan breathed in deep. “Oh, she can smell their taint on me. She despises what I am; she is familiar with my kind, but still she begs for me to wield her against the Chosen.”
“The Betrayers.” The words were out of Cho Lin’s mouth before she could hold them back.
The Shan turned to her. “I know their story, girl. You should call them the Betrayed, for your ancestors did a terrible thing. At least with this one,” he slashed the air with the sword, “she went to her death freely.”
“How do you know about the sword?”
He set the point of the blade on the stone, resting his hands on the pommel. “I’ve seen it before, you know. I felt there was something . . . strange about it at the time, but I had no chance to investigate it more thoroughly.”
“What are you talking about?” she whispered.
In reply, a ripple seemed to go through the fat man. It was not a spasm of the body, though at first she thought that’s what it was. Instead, his flesh actually trembled like water. Black hair emerged from his bald head, twisting into a topknot. His body dwindled, becoming leaner, and even his clothes changed, the simple black fabric shifting to a glistening green robe, a red phoenix unfurling along its length.
Cho Lin moaned. Her father stood before her, holding the Sword of Cho again. Her brother’s words floated through the numb horror that was rising up to overwhelm her.
‘He was slain by a demon that wore the skin of a man like a cloak.’
This was the thing that had killed her father.
She scrabbled for the Nothing, trying to retreat within herself to keep the panic at bay. The self my nothing the self my nothing the –
The demon raised the Sword of Cho lengthwise, one hand upon the hilt and the other clutching the curving blade near where it started to taper. Blood wel
led up between its fingers. A single drop hung suspended for a long moment, and then it fell.
The demon brought the sword down across its knee.
Cho Lin screamed as the blade shattered. Gleaming shards spun away, ringing upon the stone. At the sound, the tortured man hanging on the other side of the portal raised his bloody head and began to keen like a dying animal. Her fragile hold on the Nothing vanished, and she was thrust again fully into her own mind, returning to the prison – the biting cold pierced her flesh, her fingers clutched helplessly at the dry rushes, and the hanging man’s ragged, incessant shrieking cut through her like a knife.
The fragments of the ruptured soul swirl and eddy, untethered from the sword. They slide across its skin, a cold and tingling caress, and then dissipate. It should have shifted into its trueform before breaking the blade – it was difficult to drink souls that had once been bound, but not impossible. And what a rich vintage that would have been, aged a thousand years inside the spell-steel.
It gnashes its teeth, the thought of feeding sharpening the ache in its belly. For too long it has been forced to keep its mask in place in the empire of the burning men, with no chance to sate its needs. It glances at the dying Min-Ceruthan. No, there is still a use for him. What about the huddled girl? She would be sweet, it knew, a torrent of bright flashing life that would swell the blood surging in its veins. But the Chosen have other desires. They want her to be humiliated for the sins of her people, and then given to the empty creature standing here.
Its mind slithers out, questing to understand the nature of this thing the dark children have fashioned. But there is nothing. Just emptiness . . . emptiness, and a gnawing, endless hunger. It is unnerved by its presence. For all its ancient power, it is still a child of this world, and what inhabits this shell is not . . . this thing was summoned forth from some distant dark abyss.
What will the creature do when it finally is allowed to feed upon the one for which it hungers? Something worse than merely killing her, it suspects. The girl would suffer terribly.