Absence_Mist and Shadow

by J. B. Forsyth

  They cut Rauul down and he was taken up by four quaggar and carried to the stockade, his face contorting with agony when their rough handling grated the fragments of his shattered knee. The crowd parted, revealing a gate. They took Rauul through, dropped him in the dirt and made a hurried retreat. But the leaf bearer stayed behind. He approached the crack in the rocky bank, hunkered down as if the darkness within could reach out and grab him. He stuck his hand into the leaf, flicked blood around the opening and threw the whole thing in. Then he backed away to where Rauul was lying and thrust his bloody hands into the air. ‘Fyool!’

  ‘Fyool!’ the spectators replied, their eyes watery with emotion.

  He produced a powder from a pouch and rubbed it under Rauul’s nose. The soldier flinched as though struck then rolled away, grasping his knee. The leaf bearer left the enclosure, pulled the gate shut and bolted it. Then he mounted the walkway and joined the others in their chant, all eyes fixed expectantly on the crack.

  ‘Fyool!... Fyool!... Fyool!’

  Kye looked into the stockade just as something indefinable shifted in the opening of the crack. Rauul got a better look and began dragging himself away on his elbows. He heaved himself up and hopped to the stockade, where the quaggar were now drumming on the wood; their coarse mantra hushing to a reverential whisper. ‘Fyooool! … Fyooool! … Fyooool.’

  The inhabitant of the crack began separating from its lair. Fyool’s insectoid legs reached around the sides of the opening and pulled its maggot like body out with a sound like jelly slipping from a mould. Its skin was transparent and mottled with purple patches; thin enough under its belly to suggest what its last meal had been. It had six legs with two larger appendages that sprouted from its shoulders and bifurcated into pincers. But its most disturbing feature was its head. Amid a collar of rippling skin folds was an oversized quaggar face, complete with a sprout of filthy grass hair. ‘Aaaaah! Vistack ik gruub. Vishtack ik Fyool!’ To the quaggar Fyool was a deity, but to the captives it was a poisoning of the eye.

  Rauul turned away and reached for the top of the stockade, but a quaggar boy was having none of it. He hurled a rock, striking him on the forehead and forcing him to stagger away. He took too much weight through his smashed knee and it duly gave way, relinquishing him to the dirt.

  Fyool turned towards him, wrinkling its nose and rippling its body. It opened its mouth and slid its jaw forward, stretching strands of saliva between crooked teeth encrusted with green plaque. Then it lifted its huge pincers and clicked them in the air. ‘Fyool!’ the quaggar cried reverently, their collective voice brimming with love and adoration.

  Fyool hunkered down and ran at Rauul in a disjointed scuttle. But when it was a dozen feet away he jerked up and threw a rock - the same rock the quaggar boy had thrown at him. His aim was faultless and it struck the grub god between its eyes with a dull crunch. It emitted a terrible childish shriek and retracted its head so far into its pulpy body, it almost disappeared. Its legs buckled and reversed direction in a cloud of dust; pincers flailing in front of its grimacing face. A howl of disapproval severed the quaggar chant and Wormeye battered the stockade in a paroxysm of outrage.

  Kye felt a different emotion at the sight of the retreating abomination. It was a bright and invigorating elation and it ripped through his fear and despair. But just as he was beginning to think Fyool was going to squeeze back into its crack it steadied itself and pushed its head back out with an onerous hiss. Then with a change of strategy it moved sideways like a crab, skirting the rock face and the stockade; trying to get around the back of its resourceful prey. Rauul twisted to follow its movement, dragging himself across the arena in a desperate attempt to retrieve the rock. But it was too far away and before he could reach it, Fyool charged again.

  It grabbed his ankle with its pincers and lifted him so high, his fingers groped the ground. Then it thrust its vile mouth upon him, sinking its rancid teeth into the meat of his thigh. Rauul flexed at the hip and began pounding its huge quaggar face. But as it munched on him, his screams were unbridled - a series of dreadful notes that were music to its worshipers’ ears.

  ‘Fyool! ... Fyool! …Fyool!’ they began again jubilantly; their eyes feverish with pride. Oh how they loved to watch it feed.

  Fyool dropped him and skittered away as though fearing retaliation. It backed up against the stockade and rocked from side to side, its green eyes fixed on Rauul as its jaws worked on a chunk of his flesh; eventually swallowing it with a peristaltic wave that rippled its flabby neck. With growing confidence, it crept back to where he squirmed in the dust, an expression of mad delight appearing on its face.

  But it was so focused on its prey, it failed to see what the eyes of its worshipers were suddenly drawn to. Some other creature was emerging from its lair; scrambling out on what appeared to be six fleshy legs, the foremost of which were covered in strange black patterns. It was smaller than the grub god, but its torso was lean and heavily muscled. It had no pincers or quaggar face, just a blunt featureless head that gave it the look of a battering ram. Its appearance ended the recently restored Fyool mantra and replaced it with cries of alarm. Whatever this new creature was, they weren’t expecting it.

  Once clear of the crack the creature rose onto its rear legs and Kye suddenly saw it for what it was. Its front two pairs of legs were in fact arms and there were swords in its hands. There was a collective gasp from the quaggar and a delicious rush of hope in the captives.

  It was Kring!

  Fyool’s Lair

  At the sight of Kring charging toward an unsuspecting Fyool a blizzard of emotion rose in Kye’s chest. A few seconds ago he was waiting in line to die, but now his eyes were watering with hope and pride. Ormis was wrong about the giant, and here was the proof. He had tracked them to the clearing and was risking his life to save them.

  Kring leapt onto Fyool’s back, squashing its fatty body into a pair of translucent globules. It staggered under his weight and when it collapsed he grabbed a fist full of its grassy hair and brought a blade to its throat. It tried to retract its head and when it realised it couldn’t, a childish fear came over its monstrous face. For a few seconds the spectators were carved figures, their grass hair stirring in the breeze as they looked on in shock and horror. Then a spear flew from one end of the stockade. Kring turned it away with the flat of his other sword and sent it quivering into the dirt. More spears were raised, but Wormeye barked a restraining command. One of them might strike the grub god and he didn’t want that.

  ‘Let them go!’ Kring boomed, pointing to their captives. Fyool struggled beneath him, eyes rolling back and pincers reaching for him. But they lacked the range and all they could do was click at the air.

  Wormeye either didn’t understand or had chosen not to comply. He gesticulated wildly, balling his hands into fists and croaking a barrage of ugly words. Fyool found some new leverage and shifted to get more reach with its left pincer. But as it whipped up Kring severed it with a backhand swipe and it landed in a twitching heap; the stump it left behind pumping foul slurry into the dirt. Fyool screamed and tried to buck him off. The quaggar were ignited by the sacrilege and their grass hair danced around their outraged faces like flames.

  Kye saw that Fyool was tiring, perhaps even dying. And seeing this, his hope began to fade. If the grub god died, they were finished.

  ‘Let them go,’ Kring repeated, pointing to the prisoners with his sword then raising it above Fyool’s head - a threat that needed no translation.

  This time Wormeye seemed to understand.

  He turned from the stockade and barked a red faced command at the quaggar that were guarding them. Kye flinched when they drew daggers, not knowing whether Wormeye had ordered their release or their deaths. But the guards went straight to work on their bindings and they were soon free.

  ‘Into the passage,’ called Kring as they ran to the stockade. ‘Suula waits in the back.’ The quaggar parted reluctantly, their dirty hands fidgeting with murderous i
ntention. But Ormis threw the crude bolt and they rushed through unmolested.

  Kye ran into the crack with Kail, but the exorcist went to Rauul and knelt by his side. The Captain of the Elite Guard looked up at him, his face ashen and his eyes like sky behind thin cloud. His tattered thigh was still pumping blood, but the flow was weaker now. He reached up and pulled him close. ‘I haven’t got long … I can feel it…’ His voice was wispy and it broke off into a series of laboured breaths. ‘Make sure I pass.’ He fell back and Ormis covered his face with splayed fingers. A dozen yards away Fyool continued to struggle beneath Kring, its face a mask of pain and misery. He sent his scour into Rauul as his soul began to rise and all at once the Membrane was a tangible thing – an invisible fabric that was tearing open around the dying soldier. He drew gently now - just enough to keep his soul in the vicinity of the tear and to ensure he passed. And he went peacefully. He died in a place where the Membrane tore easily and he was ready to go. Ormis waited for the invisible fabric to seal itself over its prize then he was up and running into the crack.

  Only Kring remained in the arena.

  He was ringed by hundreds of hard faces, all waiting for the opportunity to right a terrible wrong. In one fluid movement he rolled off Fyool’s back, lifted its rear legs and began dragging it back to its lair. Fyool tried to resist, but its movements were sluggish and its remaining pincer flapped in the dirt. There was some ugly shouting and spears flew from several quaggar who lacked restraint. They fell short, but before anymore could be thrown Wormeye lashed them with a coarse tongue, bringing them under his fragile control once more.

  When Kring reached the crack he dropped Fyool’s legs and sprang onto its back, bringing a sword down vertically through its neck and pinning it to the ground. It jerked twice and went still; its miserable expression now fixed on its face. There was a moment of shocked silence when Wormeye stared at his dead grub god in statuesque horror. The only movement in his face was that of its resident worm, its crazy wriggling finally dislodging it from his eye socket. It fell over the stockade and in the shocked silence it could be heard striking the dirt. Then the entire crowd erupted in outrage, howling and screaming as they jumped into the arena. But Kring yanked his sword free and disappeared into the craggy blackness before the first spears clattered against the rock.

  Kye followed Kail through the darkness on his hands and knees. The smell was rank, but after the stink of the tree bridge he found he could tolerate it well enough. After several minutes of blind crawling, when only words of encouragement from Kail persuaded him through some of the tighter spots, they emerged into a large cave. Suula was waiting for them, holding up a sword that burned with a strange green fire. As Kye got closer he could see tiny flies dancing around it. They were feeding off a thick substance smeared onto the blade and their little bodies seemed to be the source of the green flames. He recognised them as fieraks, the same flies Ormis had used to light up the Lady of the Forest. The eerie glow barely reached the cave floor, but it was enough to highlight piles of old bones and half eaten corpses. This was Fyool’s lair and it stank of decaying meat. And as he looked around he had a chilling thought: if Kring hadn’t saved them they would have all ended up here. They waited in silence and it came as an enormous relief to Kye when Ormis and Kring emerged from the passage.

  ‘We got in through there,’ said Suula, reaching with her sword to illuminate another opening on the far wall. ‘It goes for a hundred feet or so then there’s a steep angle up to the opening.’

  Kring moved forward, took the sword from her and looked back at the others. ‘I’ll take us out. The entrance was well hidden, but if they know about it they’ll be waiting.’ He crunched away through a heap of old bones, dropped to his hands and knees and disappeared into the tight passage.

  Fyool’s lair was at the centre of a fissure that ran right through a rocky mound. Its rear entrance was nothing more than a horizontal crack, ten feet off the ground and screened by thick foliage. When Kring reached the opening, he listened for a while before pushing his head through and studying the jungle. The sound of quaggar pursuit was all around them, but it was distant. And once he was satisfied there weren’t any in the immediate vicinity he lowered himself down and helped the others out. When they were all gathered beneath the opening Suula took her sword back, wiped the thick substance from the blade and resheathed it. With no feeding source the flies scattered, their tiny flames burning out as they dispersed. She led them away from the rocky bank and into the darkening jungle, through hulking trunks and beneath thick branches. They skirted a patch of ferns, ducking for cover behind an enormous tree root when they heard a sudden thrash of foliage overhead. Suula picked out the source and pointed to it: a lone quaggar sentry climbing down a tree to join the hunt. When he reached a low branch he jumped, but before his feet touched the ground Kring stepped out and separated his head from his body with a single swipe of his sword. His body thudded to the forest floor and his head bounced and rolled. They were all moving again before it came to rest, his dead eyes staring after them.

  They managed nearly half a mile before an ear piercing shriek told them they’d been spotted and with no further need for stealth they stretched their legs in response. But outrunning their pursuers wasn’t just a matter of speed. They still had the intrinsic dangers of the jungle to contend with and they were forced to follow Suula in an erratic zig zag. At one place they even had to double back when they came to a fallen tree covered in spitting daisies. This brought the quaggar cries much closer and from that point on Kye ran in a hunch; unable to shake the idea there were spears trained on his back and that at any second he would see one emerging from his chest.

  The jungle broke suddenly on a vast muddy expanse with nowhere to hide for miles, but Suula took them on without breaking stride, guiding them along solid islands and firm ridges. The lack of cover pushed them harder, but after a few minutes splashing through the mud the sound of pursuit faded then ceased altogether. They slowed up and stopped, bunching up on a little island of firm ground to look back at the jungle. The quaggar were lined up on the edge of the mud flats, dozens strong and with more arriving all the time. But not one of them had taken a single step onto the flats. They had given up the chase and were staring after them, spears lowered and faces set in stony masks.

  ‘Why did they stop?’ Kye puffed. His cheeks were flushed like raw steaks and his skin sleeked with sweat.

  Ormis studied them for some time. ‘They fear this place,’ he said looking around. ‘And if they fear it, so should we.’ He turned to Suula. ‘Can you get us back on the girl’s trail from here?’

  The little tracker looked across the vast expanse of mud. She was the only one who wasn’t panting and she looked like she could run on forever. ‘If they continued on the same path they would have walked the jungle north of the flats. If we aim for the north east corner, we could make up some ground.’

  The jungle in the suggested direction was so far away, it looked like grass. Ormis looked up at the indigo sky and they all knew what he was thinking. The sun was setting on the Eastland and the mist would soon be on its way. ‘Take us there then. As quick as you can.’

  The Mud Flats

  Suula guided them around thick mud and past pools of dirty water. Slimy trees grew from the pools – their glistening branches adorned with magnificent red berries that scented the air with a strawberry redolence. Kye had never seen berries so ripe. And they were so dark and bloated, he was surprised none of them had split open. In the distance small otter like mammals were dining on them, jumping great slicks of mud to reach the trees.

  The mist appeared when they were about a mile from the north east corner - a billowing blanket that began to distort with currents and eddies as it was leeched down by awakening appetites. And as it swamped the trees, their branches folded up and they sunk into the pools; disappearing with great slurps of mud. Nearby, one of the otter creatures leapt off a folding branch and raced away - vanishing beneat
h the mist after a series of undulating jumps. They watched for a while, but it didn’t resurface.

  ‘We can’t stay on the flats,’ said Ormis, stepping up to Suula as the mist swept between their legs. ‘Can you still guide us?’

  She nodded. Whilst the rest of them were watching the approaching mist, Suula had made a study of the terrain with her sharp eyes, committing a large swathe to memory before it was covered. She drew her sword and started forward, feeling the ground with the tip of her blade and sniffing the air. The strawberry redolence was fading now and was being replaced by a flatulent reek that rose from the ground.

  They edged after her, knee deep in a vast glowing cloud. And because they were travelling a near right angle to its flow, Kye felt constantly off balance. At one point he thought he was falling and stamped a foot out to stabilise himself. But it was an unnecessary action and it served to do the very thing he sought to prevent – forcing him into a short stumble that almost sent him sprawling. He found it was better if he kept his eyes on Ormis’s back. It worked for a while, but his focus was soon drawn to the swirling patterns the exorcist’s legs were creating in the mist. He shuffled on with hooded eyes, so mesmerized that when Ormis stopped for Suula to consider their path, he walked into him. He staggered away and would have fallen if the exorcist hadn’t grabbed his arm.