by Sam Sykes
But he found none of those.
The clouds overhead had formed a ceiling of gloom, starless and black. The shattered streets were caked in thick black blood that drank what little light there was. It was as though Lenk walked into a void, not so unlike the cold dark that Denaos had described.
Perhaps this was what hell was like.
It was, after all, where he found demons.
Far from the wrathful titan he expected to find, Khoth-Kapira loomed over the Souk, bent and broken. He leaned heavily on the Silken Spire, the sinew of his back shuddering with a hacking cough. A hand was clutched to his opened throat. Streams of ichor poured out between his fingers to spatter on the ground in thick black stains. They congealed into serpents and slithered away into the dark.
It was not with a great, bellowing rage nor a dying speech to heaven that Khoth-Kapira, the God-King, He Who Held the Light, was unmade. It was in drops. It was in ragged, whispering breaths.
Eyes that had scowled enviously at heaven now rolled back to search an empty sky for something that was not looking back.
Lips that had spewed curses to the gods and sung music to mortals now opened in a desperate bid to say something, to plead something, to be heard.
But all that came out was a long, ragged sigh.
And as his breath left him, so too did he diminish. The crown that scraped the sky shrank to the earth. The serpents that writhed and hissed became withered and disappeared. The eyes that held the world in their baleful gaze dimmed and became dark.
And when Khoth-Kapira’s knees finally hit the stones, it was not with the earth-shaking crash of a titan, but with the tired groan of a broken, bleeding man.
Khoth-Kapira was dead.
And Mocca was soon to follow.
Lenk limped toward the man, who hunched over on his hands and knees, coughing up blood. He glanced out to the side and caught a glimpse of silver, the last light in the endless dark.
His sword. There, as if it had been waiting for him. As it always would.
He picked it up without ceremony. He dragged it behind him, barely enough strength to hold it, let alone lift it. He had enough in him to walk to Mocca. He had enough in him to strike him down.
And past that, it didn’t matter.
“Just a few cuts …” Mocca’s voice was thin and rasping through the hole in his throat, yet he managed. “A few cuts with a big knife. And I, who could have saved this world, am unmade.” He forced out a chuckle. Blood wept between his fingers. “You must feel so underwhelmed.”
“No,” Lenk said. “I set out to kill you.”
“And you did. Did you expect a better fight?”
Lenk shook his head.
“Did you expect to die?”
Lenk nodded.
“I am sorry, then. For everything. But my power never lay in brute force.”
Mocca stared at his life leaking out onto the street. His lips twitched, numb as they spoke.
“Covetous Ulbecetonth had a brood that numbered the thousands. Cruel Avictus could level cities with one great swing of his blade. Yet of all of us they cast into hell, it was Khoth-Kapira that the gods feared and it was he for whom their most painful torments were reserved.”
He looked up at Lenk.
“Do you know why?”
Lenk stared back for a long moment before speaking.
“Because you did what they couldn’t,” he said. “Because when someone whispered a prayer to the night, it was you who heard it. It was you who built them homes, you who healed them, you who answered their prayers.”
“All I ever wanted to do. And you would take that. You would cast them back into a dark and silent world under a cold heaven.”
“I would not.” Lenk hefted his sword in both hands. “Gods don’t give. But neither do you. And what you want, you’ll take from everyone.”
“Ah,” Mocca replied. “So it’s you who are the savior of mortality, then. You would speak for all of them, then? You would rob the dying and the ill and the poor of my blessings?”
“I would spare them the day they displease you.”
Mocca sneered. His face was paling quickly. His cheeks had gone gaunt. And his eyes were hollow of all but scorn.
“No,” he snarled. “Lie to yourself if it will soothe you, but do not tell me you do this for a sense of righteousness. Even when you were doing the right thing, you did so only because I promised you I could save her.” His lips peeled back. His teeth were stained black. “But your fragile lusts and desires are still no match for your nature.”
Lenk lowered his sword. Mocca spit his blood onto the ground.
“Do you know why the gods cursed your kind and cast you and your silver-haired miscreants out? Because you do not exist. Not truly. For as vile as they claimed us to be, the gods knew the Aeons could nourish, could encourage, could create. For all our sins, we still managed to change this world. But you? You know nothing of this. You were made to destroy. You were born to kill. You were created for no other purpose than slaughter. And so you have fulfilled that purpose.”
He stared at Lenk, hollow and empty.
“And perhaps if I had seen you as the weapon you were all along, I would have been wise enough to leave you where you could hurt no one else.”
Mocca rose to his knees. He held his hands out wide. His chest, naked and painted with his own blood, rose and fell with each ragged breath.
“Do it, then. Prove the gods right. But when you doom this world, just remember …”
He narrowed his eyes. He smiled a black smile.
“I could have stopped it.”
Mocca was right.
Mocca was always right.
Lenk was a weapon. He was fit to kill. It was all he had ever been good at and, as hard as he tried to stop, he found himself here again.
In a dark place.
With a sword in his hand.
And blood on his feet.
To do it now, to strike Mocca down, would prove them right. The gods, the demons, himself; everyone who had always suspected he couldn’t do it. To kill him now, even if it was the right thing—if it was the right thing—would prove himself the weapon he’d always feared he would be.
There was only one thing a man could do with a sword.
But there were many reasons to do that one thing.
Some of them were right. Some, maybe not so much. But men like him, men of scars and regrets and so many empty and broken things, never got to decide which were which.
They merely took up the sword.
And let it decide what happened next.
He took up his blade again. He clenched his jaw. He looked Mocca in his eyes.
And he thrust.
Not a scream but an agonized moan. Not a flash of light but a burst of blood. The sword entered Mocca’s chest, sank past his rib cage and up into his heart. The man’s eyes went bright for a moment. His body stiffened.
And, with blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, he smiled.
From the wound, it slithered out. Mocca’s blood, black as night, crept out in glistening tendrils. They coiled over the steel of the sword. They coiled up the hilt. They wrapped around Lenk’s fingers, Lenk’s hands, Lenk’s wrists.
He stared, his mouth hanging open, his eyes unblinking. He struggled violently, pulling against the coiling tendrils, but found no release. They tightened at his struggles, constricting across his wrists.
Panic seized him. Was this some last, spiteful act? Or had Mocca planned this all along? Was this the entire idea? To return to hell once more, only not alone? It wasn’t fair. He had given everything. He had fought. He had won. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t—
“Lenk.”
Her hand was on his shoulder. Her arm was around his waist. Her voice was in his ear as she leaned forward and placed her head on his shoulder.
“Just let go,” Kataria said.
He looked at the sword in his hands. He closed his eyes.
He let go.
&nb
sp; She pulled on him, letting out a grunt of exertion. The black tendrils reached for him, sought to hold on to him. But as he dug his heels in and she hauled at him, they finally released.
The two of them tumbled backward as Mocca’s body snapped backward. The demon’s spine bent. His head arched backward, his eyes staring emptily toward heaven. His mouth opened, twitched in a last whisper.
“I could have stopped it …”
His blood coated his body. His skin was cloaked in black. It hardened over his flesh, became as twisted and jagged as obsidian, until Lenk could recognize neither the demon nor the man.
Overhead, the clouds began to dissipate.
The stars began to shine.
And below, the sword’s hilt drank its light and it did not shine.
FORTY-NINE
THE GOLDEN GOD
Asper clasped her hands together. Her eyes closed, she respectfully bowed her head.
“I know we haven’t talked much.”
The words came hesitantly. She had to pick each one out of her mouth and set it on the table. She had gone over words just like this a million times in her head, yet somehow it was never as easy as actually saying them.
“And I know … the last time we did, I was not as respectful as I might have been.”
She stared at her hands, clasped together as they were, and felt the sudden urge to stop talking and simply walk away. What good would this do, anyway? It hadn’t helped so far. And yet, she continued.
“Maybe you’ll think this is just opportunism. We only ever seem to talk in a crisis, anyway. Maybe you’ll think I’m just looking out for my own skin. And I guess—”
She paused. This felt so stupid. So forced. It wasn’t going to do anything. It never did. And still …
“And I guess I can’t blame you for that. And I wouldn’t blame you for not believing me. Hell, I wouldn’t even be asking—I don’t even know if you do answer—but it’s not about me. It’s not about my problems.”
She looked up. She forced iron into her stare. She forced the words to come out.
“It’s about the people. However many thousands are still left in this city after all the war and the murders. So many have fled, many more are dead … but there are still so many who could be killed when the tulwar arrive tomorrow. I can’t …”
She grimaced and buried her face in her hands. She bit back a sob, wrenched her hair. She told herself she wouldn’t do this. She knew it wouldn’t help anything. As it was, she managed to fight back tears and just let all the anger show on her face.
“I can’t fail them. I know I’ve said that before, time and time again, and I keep failing them. But I have to keep trying. I have to fight for them. Until my very last breath, I have to fight. But I can’t do it alone.”
She took in a breath. She placed her hands on the table. She looked up.
“Will you help?”
A trio of tasteful portraits stared back at her: an elegant lady in repose upon a bed of silks, a still life of a bowl of fruit, a rolling landscape of sunny hills. The idyllic scenes offered no answers to her.
Yet, despite the fact that she could see none of their faces, Asper knew that behind each of the paintings, the couthi were smiling at her.
“This one expresses sympathies to your conundrum.” Man-Shii Kree, behind the elegant lady, leaned forward. He clasped all four hands on the table, the sleeves of his voluminous red robe pooling around his wrists. “Sincere expressions of gratitude are heaped upon your face, shkainai, as this one equates your honored and tragic torments to his own life.”
“This one adheres to strict agreement of the previous assessment,” Man-Khoo Yun added in an identically chilling monotone. His portrait of a bowl of fruit inclined toward her. “Inquiries into events undergone in the previous two days have been processed. This one has arrived at sufficient empathy to express sincere hopes as to the honored Prophet’s recovery.”
“Proficiency in understanding was employed with imminence,” the third, yet-unnamed couthi, clad in violet robes and wearing the rolling landscape portrait, added in a voice identical to theirs. “This one adds emphasis to all above statements and directs and thrusts queries of well-being directly at the honored Prophet.”
Asper quirked a brow at this latter one. Man-Shii Kree was quick to interject, gesturing with two of his hands toward his fellow couthi.
“May this one be burdened with the special task of introducing associate and captain of the merchant fleet, Man-Leng Qij,” he said. “The esteemed member arrived insignificant days ago to collect what remains of the Brotherhood’s investments in Cier’Djaal before we evacuate to kinder quarters. But please …”
All three couthi leaned forward in eerie synchronicity.
“These ones express polite inquiry as to the state of your health.”
“I’m fine,” Asper said. “We’re all …” She shook her head. “The demon is dead. His followers are dead. But Cier’Djaal is destroyed. I don’t have men or fortifications to hold this city. All I can do is try to save who I can.”
The three couthi exchanged pointed glances toward each other. Or at least, Asper assumed they were pointed. It was impossible to tell. Man-Shii Kree inclined his portrait toward her. The other two followed.
“This one struggles to find the capacity for the awe expressed at such an undertaking,” he said. “May assurances be heaped upon the honored Prophet’s face that all available members express profound and illuminative admiration for her cause.”
“This one risks redundancy by concurring, once again,” Man-Khoo Yun added. “All expressions of immense truth emit from this one’s oral orifice when this one commends and congratulates the honored Prophet in her resolve.”
“This one apologizes greatly for adding a third redundant approval,” Man-Leng Qij said. “But this one finds all imperatives to remain silent overwhelmed by lust for—”
“Oh, would you just fuck off with this?”
Asper hadn’t meant to sound quite so incensed. And she certainly hadn’t meant to slam both fists on the table, causing all three couthi to recoil. But if she wasn’t above cursing at her friends or her deities, she wasn’t going to put on airs for three bug-fuckers.
“No more,” she snarled. “This isn’t the Souk. I’m not a customer. You’re not trying to sell me porcelain dogs. The city is destroyed and I’ve got countless lives to save. I’ve seen behind your paintings and I’ve heard your real voices and I know what you really want. I’m not here for platitudes.”
She stiffened up in her chair. By the light of the single oil lamp hanging overhead in the basement room, her face was creased with shadows.
“I’m here to negotiate.”
The three couthi fell silent. All twelve of their limbs disappeared behind the table. They stared at her through their paintings, each one of them so still she wasn’t sure they were even breathing. And as long, silent moments passed, she realized that, for the first time since she had met them, she had absolutely no idea what the couthi were thinking.
And she hadn’t realized how terrifying that was until this moment.
“Very well.”
Man-Shii Kree spoke. Truly spoke. His voice was guttural and clicking, a many-legged thing crawling out of his throat.
“Let us negotiate, shkainai.”
“We have heard of your dead demon,” Man-Khoo Yun rasped out, leaning forward. “We undertook considerable risk remaining in the city. Our fleet possesses five ships, each of them capable of carrying a considerable number of humans. We will connect with an additional three ships farther up the coast on the way to Muraska. We have supplies enough to feed and care for as many humans as you need on the trip to Muraska.”
“Understand that, while the city is unsalvageable, our assets here are not inconsiderable.” Man-Leng Qij’s voice was drier, harsher, perhaps older than the other two. “We possess caches of matériel, silks, and other treasures that we value at immense profit. There is not room upon our ships for
both your humans and our investments, though.”
“So you want something in exchange,” Asper said. “Name it.”
“Of course … Prophet.” Man-Shii Kree’s voice carried a particular menace on that last word. “We have followed your rapid ascension with great interest. No doubt, exploits of your heroic last stand at the Green Belt will be reaching far and wide.”
“But I lost that battle,” she said. “I lost everything there.”
“You sacrificed everything,” Man-Khoo Yun offered, holding up one monstrous, clawed finger. “Bravely, outnumbered and defiant against the savage horde, you fought to your last and ultimately broke the beasts. It took an act from hell to give them the advantage to best you, and though you might have lost the city, you saved so many lives.”
“That’s not what happened, though.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Man-Leng Qij spoke. “Humans love these stories. They will fill in the parts that don’t make sense with what they wish had happened. Your legend will grow swiftly. When you arrive at Muraska, you will find their leaders receptive to your plight.” He steepled all four of his hands. “We would like to benefit from this.”
“Of course,” she muttered. “And how do you aim to do that?”
“Nothing the Prophet cannot give us,” Man-Shii Kree said. “Favorable trade agreements, exclusive rights for mercantile properties, further—”
“Bullshit,” she interrupted.
“You are not in a position to refuse so easily,” Man-Leng Qij hissed.
“No, not that.” Asper leaned forward. “This isn’t what you really want. Your Brotherhood has been operating for longer than Muraska’s been a country. You can get all the agreements you want. And even if you couldn’t, something about your story doesn’t make sense.
“No matter how considerable your assets are, you can’t use them if you’re all dead. Yet even now, you stayed through the demon attack. And you have supplies to feed all the people of Cier’Djaal?”
She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms.
“You were waiting for this,” she said. “You knew I’d come to you. So tell me what you’re really after.”