by D. P. Prior
“Water,” Nils said. “He needs water.”
Nameless muttered something. Nils bent closer so that he could hear.
“What was that?”
“Shog… water.”
Silas clapped his hands, and a huge tankard with a great head of froth appeared in them. “I think I know what he wants.”
He went down on one knee, held Nameless’s head up, and put the tankard to his lips. The dwarf’s tongue dipped into the froth.
“Mmmnnng,” he grunted, and then took a sip. The sip became a glug, and then he pulled the tankard away from Silas and poured the contents all over his face, lapping up as much as he could.
“More!” he growled, and Silas produced another tankard out of thin air. Nameless sat up and downed the whole lot in one go. He let out a burp and then raised one bushy eyebrow at Ilesa.
“It’s all right, lassie. You can let go of my dwarfhood now.”
“What?”
Nameless nodded to his groin.
“Oh, I was just—”
“Aye, lassie, I know, but you’ll have to wait your turn.” A shadow seemed to cross his face then, and he looked deeply into the empty tankard. “How’s the magic holding up, laddie?”
“Need to take it easy,” Silas said. “I’ve used a lot of power already today.”
“I know,” the dwarf said. “Maybe more than you should have.” He gave Silas a lingering look.
“I don’t—” Silas began.
“I’ve seen dark things in my time,” Nameless said. “Darker than you can imagine. Just make sure you aren’t getting into something you can’t handle.”
Silas’s cheek twitched, and he looked like he was going to say something, but then turned away toward the milky face of Raphoe. When he turned back, there was something close to frenzy in his eyes, but then he blinked, and it was gone as quickly as it had come.
Nils didn’t like the atmosphere one bit. “Silas is gonna teach me to read,” he said, offering his hand to Nameless. The dwarf gripped his forearm so hard, Nils thought he might break a bone.
“Mixed blessing, if you ask me,” Nameless said, struggling to his feet. “Course, it depends on what you plan to read.” He shot a look at Silas before turning his gaze on Ilesa. It was a hard look he gave her, one that had her take a step back. “Lassie, lassie,” he said. “We’re all friends here.”
Ilesa forced a weak smile. Nils wondered how much of their earlier conversation the dwarf had heard. Just because he’d been lying there so still didn’t mean—
Nameless clapped him on the back so hard, Nils nearly coughed his guts up. “Proud of you, laddie. Mighty proud. Always said there was honor among thieves. Now, tell me,”—he gave Ilesa a beaming smile and then turned it on Silas—“what’s all the fuss about this place? Nightmares, my axe! I think I’m beginning to like it here.”
The dwarf’s hands went to his cheeks, and his eyes opened wide. “Where is my axe?”
“You dropped—” Nils started to say.
“I dropped it,” Nameless said. “Anyone fancy a ramble back to see if we can find it?”
Deathly silence.
“No? Oh, well, best press on then, assuming you’re ready to go?”
“Shouldn’t we wait until daybreak?” Silas asked sheepishly.
“Already here,” Nameless said, pointing at the twin suns on the horizon, where the three moons were sinking so quickly, it seemed their strings had been cut.
“The Cynocephalus dreams darkly, don’t they say?” Nameless set off toward the red and purple ribbons streaming across the brightening sky. “But maybe he’s not so troubled, after all. If I’m not very much mistaken, Qlippoth is going to do me the world of good. World of good, I tell you. Oh, and laddie.” Nameless beckoned Nils over. “Ignore what I just said. Take this chance to learn your letters. Never did me any harm. Here, you can have this.” He unshouldered his pack and dug around inside, pulling out a black leather book. “It belonged to an old friend.”
He gazed off into the distance, as if remembering. There was a film of moisture over his eyes.
“It’s beyond me,” Nameless said. “Maybe you’ll have more luck. And between you and me,”—he leaned in close to whisper—“it won’t do your teacher any harm to have a change of subject matter.”
“What’s it about?” Nils asked, trying to work out the title on the cover.
“Gods and the like.” Nameless gave a bit of a shrug. “Love and peace, and a surprising amount of smiting.”
“Oh.” Nils turned up his nose.
“Don’t rubbish what you’ve not tried,” Nameless said.
NAMELESS
The suns came up like a pair of malevolent eyes, retaining their crimson hue even at their zenith. Gray clouds processed in front of them, misshapen islands floating in the cobalt sky.
The paralysis had left Nameless’s limbs and retreated to the edges of his mind, where it still lurked like the darkness at the edge of a campfire. He refused to give it quarter, though. His black dog moods were an enemy he couldn’t face head on, but he’d found they didn’t take too well to being ignored. He may not have been in the best of spirits, but experience had taught him that manufactured jollity had a way of duping him into the real thing.
He forced a grin as broad as a barn and set a brisk pace, all the while humming a jaunty ditty he’d picked up in Bucknard’s Beer Hall, back when there were still dwarves in Arx Gravis.
The thick green foliage they’d been traipsing through suddenly passed like smoke on the breeze and left them without warning atop a precipitous cliff above a roiling sea. White horses frothed toward a rocky beach hundreds of feet below, and here and there violent eddies and swirls sprang up with the randomness of pure chaos.
Nils let out a gasp and pointed at the huge cloak-like rays skimming beneath the waves. Nameless followed his finger to where half a dozen black dorsal fins basked close to the shore.
Silas was wheezing from exertion, and coughing into a pink-stained handkerchief.
Ilesa stood apart from the group, sullen in her dusky beauty. Her satin hair was whipped up by a gust of wind, and she looked to Nameless as full of elemental ire as one of the wailing spirits his pa Droom had told spooky stories about.
He’d heard everything they’d said back at the camp. His body might have been frozen by the dark sorcery of his mood, but there had been nothing wrong with his hearing. Still, he told himself, lest he wandered down that precarious path, she owed him no loyalty. She was what she was, same as Silas.
“So, what’s the plan?” Silas said between coughs. “Because I’d sooner we found another route. This sea air is killing me.”
“Maybe you should consult that book of yours,” Nameless said. “See if you can divine our passage.”
“It’s not that kind of book.”
“No, I figured that. So, unless anyone has a better idea, I say we fill our lungs with salty air and see what’s on the other side of these cliffs.”
Nameless turned and took a few jogging steps, making sure to lift his knees high and pump his arms. He abruptly stopped and made a show of looking past Nils and Silas to Ilesa.
“Unless, of course, you have anything to add, lassie.”
Ilesa pulled her hair back from her face and tied it with black ribbon. “Like I said, there are no maps. All we have to go on is hearsay.”
“But you’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
She nodded, chewing her bottom lip. “Came here once or twice with Brau. Got as far as the village we left behind. There were people there then. Ordinary folk we used to do business with. Course, we had to pay a fee to Shent, but it was good trade nonetheless.”
Nils stepped back from the edge, eyes full of wonder at the creatures he’d been spying on in the waters below. “What do you suppose happened to them?”
“Brau said he’d been beyond the village on a couple of occasions,” Ilesa said. “Told me there was some kind of plague that turned people into zombies. Las
t I heard, the villagers were planning to uproot and move elsewhere. Guess they left it too late.”
“Good of you to tell us,” Silas said, wiping his mouth and thrusting the handkerchief in his coat pocket.
“Didn’t think it was going to be a problem.”
Nameless caught her eye, tried to read her, but found her as inscrutable as Silas’s grimoire. “Anything else we should know, lassie, before we get ourselves neck deep in any more of the Demiurgos’s dung?”
“Actually, it’s the Cynocephalus’s—his bastard son,” Silas said.
“Doesn’t matter which shogger’s doing the dreaming. I just want to be forewarned.”
Ilesa held out her palms. “Village was as far as I got before. This is as new to me as it is to you. That’s all I know. Really.”
“Good enough for me,” Nameless said, turning his face to the chill wind gusting down the trail and wishing he’d not shaved his beard.
“But you didn’t hear what she said back there,” Nils said. “Back at the village.”
“Did,” Nameless said.
“You could hear?” Silas said, struggling alongside him. “Even at the camp?”
“Aye.”
Silas put a hand on his shoulder. “Nameless, wait up. I think I ought to clarify—”
“No harm done, laddie.” Nameless gave him a pat on the hand. “All just doing the best we can.”
Nameless continued along the clifftop path. He’d taken no more than a dozen steps, when he felt a wave of vertigo. He swooned, and found himself mere inches from the edge, whereas a moment ago he could have sworn it was feet.
“What the Abyss just happened?” Silas called out, making his tentative way toward Nameless in a diagonal path that took him away from the precipice. Nils and Ilesa had felt it, too, by the looks of it, and were stepping warily in Silas’s footsteps.
“Rock fall?” Nameless wondered out loud. Nonsense, of course, for he’d heard nothing, seen nothing.
“This don’t feel right,” Nils said, eyeing the cliff edge with suspicion. “It’s got the stink of magic about it.”
“Or dreams,” Ilesa said. “That’s what this place is, isn’t it? The land of nightmares? This sort of thing happens in dreams all the time.”
Nameless gave her a worried frown. “Not mine. If the Cynocephalus had half my imagination, we’d be on our fifth round by now. What about your dreams, laddie?” He shot a look at Nils. “No, on second thoughts, best not answer that.”
Nils reddened, and Nameless reached over to slap him on the shoulder. “Just joshing, laddie. Keeping the spirits up. Come on. If we back away from the edge…”
The words died in his throat. Behind them, where there should have been endless greensward rolling away from the ocean, there was now rough sea. The cliff was no more than a narrow strip of rock hundreds of feet above the raging waters.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Nils said, and promptly was.
Nameless looked down at his boots. There was barely a couple of feet to the edge either side. Might not have been too big a problem, had it not been for the wind, which was picking up, skirling around them with a whistling howl.
“We need to keep moving,” Ilesa said, ushering the others ahead of her. “Make it to the far side.”
She pointed in the direction Nameless had been leading them. Whereas before there had been no end in sight, now there was a freestanding wooden gate in the near distance, and a massive figure loomed on the other side of it.
Nameless squinted but could make out little, other than it was humanoid and very large.
“What is that?” Silas spoke so close Nameless could smell the rankness of his breath—coppery and pungent, like a wound turned bad.
“Giant?” Nameless wondered out loud. He winced at the recollection of the fire giant Sartis’s ruined head. If he didn’t shut the memory down right away, he’d be on a slippery slope to the black dog’s kennel. “Let’s go and ask.”
Before he could move, a chunk of earth broke away, and he slid toward the edge.
“Shog!” he cried, flailing about and hoping someone would grab his hand.
No one did, and the next instant he was plunging head over heels toward the hungry sea.
NILS
“Nameless!” Nils screamed.
He shuffled forward, but soil and rock was still crumbling from the edge, and Silas was in his way.
“Why didn’t you grab him?” Nils asked the wizard. “You could’ve caught him?”
Silas turned to Ilesa, spread his palms. “Happened too fast. You saw, didn’t you? There was no time.”
“I saw,” Ilesa said. She moved along the path a little way so she could approach the edge and look over. She stared down at the sea for a long time, like she was considering something. “There was no time,” she said with a sigh. “Nothing you could have done.”
“Bollocks,” Nils said. His mouth was full of the snot dripping from his nose, and there were tears streaming down his cheeks. He felt too angry to be ashamed about it, though. Too scared. “So what are we gonna do now, huh? What the shog are we gonna do?”
“Press on,” Silas said.
“Go back,” Ilesa said at the same time.
Nils wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Don’t see no point staying out here without Nameless. Thought finding the dwarves was what this was all about.”
“Then you thought wrong,” Silas said. “There were always other considerations, only you never thought to ask. You two do what you like. I’m going to speak to the giant.”
Nils didn’t like the look of the looming presence one little bit. “Rather you than me, mate. I’m off. Coming?” he asked Ilesa.
She didn’t look right. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, and she’d turned a sickly gray. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
“You all right?” Nils said. “Only you don’t look—”
“Fine,” she said, shooting a glare at Silas. “Least I will be, when we get back to Malfen. Don’t look so good yourself.”
Nils had been too shocked to notice. Seeing Nameless plunge over the edge had cut him deep. Not that he gave a stuff about the dwarf, he told himself. It was just… just shocking, is what it was. He put the back of his hand to his head. Reckoned he had a fever. “Shog, I’m burning up. How about you, Silas?”
“No, I’m fine.” Silas leaned in close to peer at Nils. “Well, no worse than normal. You get bitten by those zombies?”
“Just scratches, mainly.” Nils’s hand went to his ear. “Think one of them might’ve chewed on my lughole.”
“How about you? Any bites?” Silas moved to examine Ilesa, but her dagger was at his throat before he could lay a finger on her.
“Go shog yourself.”
Silas withdrew, holding his hands up placatingly. “Only, I saw something about them in the grimoire, when it made me… when I cast that spell.”
“Show me,” Ilesa said.
Silas unfastened his bag and pulled out the book. He started to leaf through the pages. “I know it was here somewhere. Should have made a note of the page, only it was so hectic back there.”
“Shogging Brau,” Ilesa said. “Never told me they’d taken over the village. What is it with people?”
“Somewhere around here,” Silas went on, oblivious. “Somewhere…”
Nils caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to see the giant plodding down the clifftop path toward them. Only, it weren’t just a large man. It weren’t rightly human, what with it only having one massive eye set in the center of its forehead. “Uh, Silas…”
“Patience, boy,” Silas said with a tut. “Can’t you see I’m…”
“Silas!”
“What’s this?” the cyclops said in a voice like rolling thunder. “Nice happy family out for a blustery stroll? What brings you good folk all the way out here?”
“Dwarves,” Nils blurted out.
“Blight… Nothing,” Silas said. “I mean, yes, dwarves.”
“You are ill?” the cyclops said. “You must come out of the wind.” It turned, as if to lead them toward the gate.
“Fine,” Ilesa said with a grimace. “I’m fine. We’re just leaving.”
“That may not be possible.” The cyclops looked over their heads, back down the trail.
“Oh, it’s possible,” Ilesa said, drawing her sword, and still clutching her dagger in the other hand.
Nils followed the cyclops’ gaze and felt his stomach fill with lead. “What the shog?”
The clifftop path had vanished. From a few yards behind Ilesa, there was nothing but roiling black mist.
“How?” Silas said, closing the grimoire and gawping like a startled turkey.
“You are new to Qlippoth?” the cyclops asked. “This is simply the way of things here.”
Ilesa sheathed her sword and dagger. “Seems we have no choice,” she said. “After you.”
“Good,” the cyclops said. “It’s been a long time since I had visitors. No one seems to just drop by these days.”
He set off the way he’d come from with long, loping strides.
“Come on,” Silas said. “I can look for the page about zombie bites when we get wherever we’re going.”
Nils grunted his approval and followed the wizard.
It was only when they had passed beyond the gate and started through a dense pine forest, that he felt a gnawing at the back of his mind.
He turned to find that Ilesa had vanished.
NAMELESS
Teeth rushed up toward Nameless’s face. Huge teeth. Colossal.
He tumbled for an eternity—far longer than he should have. Far slower, too. It took his befuddled brain a moment to realize that he’d be dead already, if this were natural. Dead, or at least extremely wet, and then dead, seeing as he couldn’t swim.
The fall turned into a wafting descent, a gentle swirl toward the maw of a gigantic fish—a fish with the biggest, sharpest, most luminescent… not teeth. Not teeth at all. They were bars of light across a cavernous opening that was certainly mouth-like, if not an actual mouth.