by Lara Morgan
Taking a breath, she began to climb down. The bank was thick mud and she was soon slipping down the face of it. Small branches scraped her body as she went and long roots tangled her limbs. She tried to grip onto them, but the mud made her slip and she tumbled down, striking root and stick, until she hit the bottom and slipped, her arms wheeling out, splashing, as she sank into the river.
41
The water was cold, but not too deep. Her feet touched the bottom and the current tugged at her as she scrambled for a hold on the slippery roots at the water’s edge. She clung there, the wood slimy under her fingers, and tried to silently cough up the muddy water she’d swallowed. Something whistled in the jungle above and she froze. But after a while it was answered by another low whistle, then another, and she realised it was just some jungle creatures calling to each other.
She listened for other noises, for sticks breaking underfoot or the thump of wings, but there was nothing. The river lapped at her neck and she realised the pack had come off her back. She looked back up the slope but it wasn’t there. Turning, she saw it bobbing along in the current, moving out into the middle of the river. He would see it, she thought in panic. Surely it should sink! Why was it floating? Then she saw one of its straps was hooked onto a log that tumbled along with it. She swore, but there was nothing to be done. Gritting her teeth, she began to move slowly along in the water, following the edge of the bank, holding on to stop the current sweeping her out into the main stream.
The jungle was quiet and the mud thick beneath her feet, and for a moment she thought maybe she had a chance, but then from behind her came the flap of wing. Air beaten by huge leathery wings, sucked and whumped above the water.
She turned, cringing back into the bank’s shadow as the dark shape of Nuathin rose above the trees. The serpent emitted a low, keening cry, and the sound sent shivers across her back. Her hands clenched into the mud of the bank. She watched him spread his wings and glide toward where she hid, a mass of shadow and claw against the dark indigo night. Azoth wasn’t on his back.
Nuathin swooped closer, flying low above the water. Trembling, Shaan sank low and tried to press herself under the overhanging roots, turning her face toward the bank so he wouldn’t see the glint of her eye in the dark. She stayed as still as she could, her back muscles hard as stone, and felt the rush of air as he passed by, heard the stretch and pull of his wings, the snort of his breath. The water rippled around her with the force of his passing. He was so close surely he would see her! A terrified, angry scream was working its way up her throat. Then there was a splash out beyond her, and Nuathin cried again, higher pitched like fingers scraping on glass. He’d found the pack! Shaan turned to see the serpent pluck it from the water, the log coming up with it, lifting it effortlessly. His great head dipped and stretched as he screeched again. Panic rose like bile in her throat.
She had to get out of the water! What had she been thinking? She clutched at the roots to pull herself up, and heard a rustle of leaf on the bank above. She froze. Listening. The sound of a leaf slapping back against something solid came, then a low, mocking laugh.
‘Will you hide there all night child?’ Azoth said and stepped to the edge. He was right above and could see her, hiding among the roots.
A sudden fierce anger seized her and she looked up at him with loathing. ‘I won’t do it!’ she shouted. ‘I won’t find it for you!’
He laughed again, his face pale in the moonlight. ‘Come up here,’ he commanded and held out a hand to her.
Come to me, he whispered in her mind. She trembled and gritted her teeth as tears of anger came. She tried to resist him, but her body was not hers to command. Her arms pushed her out from under the roots and her hands dug into the mud, her legs pushing her up from beneath.
‘No!’ she screamed as her limbs propelled her up, slipping and sliding to within his grasp.
He reached down and gripped her arm, yanking her up and over the lip of the bank, almost pulling her arm from her socket. He tossed her to the ground and she lay there at his feet, covered in mud.
‘Why did you run?’ his voice dropped, low and menacing, and he bent over her, blocking out the silver webs of moonlight. ‘Did you think you could escape me? Aaah, my love,’ he curled a finger though her wet and muddied hair and whispered, ‘The Seer and her desert man told me you would try to return to Salmut. Oh they were reluctant, but few can defy me. They begged me to not hurt you as much as I hurt them before I was done.’
Rage made Shaan shake, her lips pulled back from her teeth and with an animal scream she launched herself at him. Punching and kicking, she roared and scraped at him with her nails. He fended her off, his longer arms catching at hers, pinning her. He slapped her hard across the face, but she was numb, she felt nothing but rage and hate. She tried to scratch at his face, to scratch his voice from her mind.
Azoth hefted her off the ground and with an easy swing, threw her into the river. Rushing water ran into her open mouth as she went under. It shocked the numbness from her. It was black and cold and she tumbled over and over in the current. Something hit her side, bounced off, and then crashed into her head. She couldn’t breathe. Dizzy, she twisted and turned then struck out, pulling herself up to come gasping out, floundering in the swift flow of the water. She had barely time to draw a breath before Nuathin was upon her. He hovered over, reached down, and plucked her from the river. She screamed as claws punctured her flesh. Clashing like knives, they came around her, slicing shallow cuts in the soft flesh of her belly. She hung there, bleeding, while the air rushed around her head and the sharp acrid scent of the serpent filled her nostrils.
Nuathin swooped back to the bank and dropped her at Azoth’s feet. She cowered on the ground coughing and retching as river water ran from her nose and mouth. The cuts stung and burned.
He squatted beside her, his voice tight and angry. ‘Stop defying me. I don’t want to hurt you.’ He yanked her up. His hand grazed the blisters on her burnt hand and she screamed in pain.
‘Enough!’ he snapped. ‘We will go to the temple.’ And he began dragging her into the jungle. Shaan fell to her knees, but he didn’t stop. He dragged her though the foliage, the sharp blades of the palms opening cuts in her cheeks. He was immensely strong, pulling her along the ground with one hand as he pushed plants from his path with the other.
Screaming and crying abuse at him, she managed to get to her feet, but had to run to keep pace. It was dark and she kept tripping over fallen tree limbs and stumbling in sudden holes, but Azoth kept going, his hand like a vice around her wrist.
She began to go numb. Her whole world was pain and mud and darkness. She stopped screaming, stopped crying, it was enough effort just to keep breathing and not fall. Blackness pressed in from all sides and the air was thick with the smell of decaying leaves. Her feet were cut and bruised and she twisted her ankle several times, but had to keep going, limping along behind him, each step like a knife in her leg.
They seemed to go on like this for hours. Azoth said nothing; the only sound was her tortured breath and the slow whump of Nuathin’s wings as he tracked them, unseen above the canopy. Strange thoughts started to come to her and she began to see things from the corner of her eye. Once she was sure she saw Tuon, staring at her from behind a tree. But it was too dark to see the trees, it was too dark to see anything and Tuon was dead, she knew that. Everyone who helped her died. There was nothing now but darkness and shadow, and she stumbled on and on forever. The earth disappeared from beneath her; she stepped into the nothingness and fell. Faintly, from far away, she heard Azoth curse and there was a sudden glint of light in an eye, then nothing.
She woke to find herself slung across Azoth’s shoulder, her head lolling as he walked. It was daylight and she could only see properly out of one eye. Her right eye was swollen shut and that whole side of her face was puffy and numb. Her mouth was dry and she was weak from hunger. She put her hands on Azoth’s back and tried to push herself up to stop
her head from bouncing. The skin on her burnt hand was peeling and raw, but she couldn’t feel any pain.
‘Stop,’ she called out weakly. But if he had noticed her faint cry he ignored her. She clenched her stomach muscles against the hardness of his shoulder and tried to keep her head up. Her neck and back cramped from the strain, and she began to pound at his back.
Finally he stopped and she almost retched as her feet touched the ground. She swayed, dizzy and almost falling, as the blood roared painfully back into her limbs. He made no attempt to help her and she put her hands on her knees, sucking in air, and looked around. They were deep in the jungle now. There were far fewer plants on the ground and the trees had hard black trunks and towered high above forming a thick canopy that blocked out the sky.
She looked up at him as he handed her a water skin, drinking slowly, keeping her good eye on him. Did he look a little tired? A thin film of sweat covered his brow and he stood with his hands on his hips as he watched her drink. His shoulders were sagging the tiniest bit, his head hanging a little lower, his chin not so proud.
His eyes ran over her from head to foot, dark and watchful. ‘Can you walk now?’
She nodded, handing back the skin. There was still power in his gaze.
‘Come then, it’s not much further.’ He didn’t bother to take her arm this time. He just turned and began walking. He thought he had broken her.
She stood for a moment watching him go, and then slowly hobbled after him, dull pain running up her legs with every step. She thought of Balkis, reaching for her as Azoth took her away. It opened a dull pain in her heart, like a cut splitting open: more wounds.
They pushed through a knot of creepers to emerge once more at the river. It was a tributary this time. They had doubled back, past the path that cut through the jungle near the bridge. The river was narrower here and the water ran slower, but it was what sat on the opposite bank that made her legs tremble: shattered stone walls, the remains of a gate and, beyond, a broken road of stone, thick with creepers. The city from her dreams. Fear leaped into her throat.
Azoth had stopped and was staring at it, his eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a hard line. He looked suddenly much older, an old man sheathed in youth: a skin of agelessness stretched tightly across an ancient soul. He had been betrayed here, turned on and destroyed. Shaan thought bitterly that she hoped it cut him deep, that he was driven to despair by the sight of it.
But he only stood staring at it silently, and then without looking at her said curtly, ‘Come’. He walked downriver to an old narrow stone bridge that curved up and over the water.
She followed, filled with a kind of useless inertia as she felt hope fly from her. Parts of the bridge had crumbled away and it was covered in a patina of ingrained mould, but it held under their weight. They crossed it carefully, the sky darkening as clouds began to gather. By the time they reached the opposite bank the first drops of rain had begun to fall, a soft wet patter on her weary shoulders.
Azoth seemed not to notice as he strode up to the broken gates and passed through. Shaan followed, her steps unsteady. To her right, just outside the gates between the wall and the river, was the place she had cowered as Petar died. She moved past, pushing back the images that crowded into her mind.
She saw deep cracks made by fire in the massive, crumbling stone pillars and inside the walls. Streets that were once wide thoroughfares were choked with creepers and mounds of stone. On every side of her were the signs of destruction and age. Huge piles of rubble marked the sites of buildings, the blocks of stone now covered in a creeping mass of twisted and gnarled overgrowth. In one area, trees had sprouted up through the corners of walls and pushed aside the stone paving of the streets. The branches were heavy with bulbous orange berries and the ground underfoot littered with fallen fruit. A thick scent of ferment hung in the air.
Azoth kept heading deeper into the city, following what must have once been the main road. As they left the outskirts behind, they began to pass areas which were more intact. Buildings with walls still standing, and streets barely touched by the vines, started to appear as the road wound in a gentle curve. They passed through a square, a fountain in the centre. On all sides, roofless two- and three-storeyed houses looked down, the gaping dark windows like eyes in the misty curtain of rain. Each building had a wide stone platform that stretched from the front of it on the second story, held up by thickly carved pillars. They were close enough to each other that you’d be able to jump from one platform to another. They were also big enough for a serpent to land on. Shaan stared at them and tried not to wonder who or what, had lived in those homes.
The deeper they went into the city, the less damage there appeared to be and the more the atmosphere pressed down upon her. No sound penetrated the city’s walls here, and the air was hot and dense. Memories crowded into the hollows and cracks of the stone; Shaan could almost see them swirling around her, a miasma of destruction and despair. Her throat closed up and she became aware of a faint whispering. It was distant and elusive, but it was there, humming along the empty streets, searching, reaching.
She stopped and terror slammed into her. It was looking for her: the Birthstone. She could feel it! For a moment she couldn’t move and she stared ahead, her eyes wide. It was just up there, around the corner. She stared at a smaller street that led between two columned buildings and disappeared into darkness. Azoth was moving toward it.
No! No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t! The inertia was flung off like a cloak and she turned and ran. Her feet pounded back to the square, away, away from the whispers. But Azoth was already aware of her flight. He moved faster than she thought possible. A step, a leap and his hand struck her back. She fell to the stone. Something snapped in her wrist as she hit the ground. She screamed, a pitiful shout in the thick quiet. And then he was on her and pulling her up, dragging her with him. He didn’t utter a word. His face was closed and determined, his eyes almost black. Shaan pulled against him, writhing and twisting, but he was steel and ice and the rain was in her face as she fell again and again to the ground. She was dragged across the stone, until she managed to get up, her skin broken and bruised, to stagger after him, resisting with a useless rage.
He pulled her down the short, dark street into a circular paved ring of buildings surrounding a temple of obsidian stone. Crouching before it was Nuathin, the serpent’s great eyes glinting, his hide shimmering in the rain. Hot breath came in puffs from his nostrils and his talons scraped like swords clashing as he rose, his barbed tail tapping and screeching across the stone. Azoth murmured to him in a voice tight with barely contained expectation and the serpent crouched low to the ground, splaying itself out before him and laying its great head on the stone, a mere dog at his master’s call.
He dragged her toward the temple and Nuathin swivelled one eye to her as she passed. And then she was tripping up black stone steps, slippery in the wet. The doors of the temple were long gone. It was nothing but a gaping, black hole, a void of shadow and whispers waiting to swallow her.
Azoth didn’t hesitate as he swept her along with him into the darkness. Cold hit her like a fist in the stomach. Aching, biting cold, and then whispers in the dark. It was completely black and she clutched at him, terrified he would let her go. She would be lost to the voice that sought her. She could feel it here, so strong that the pain of her body was gone, replaced by an overriding raw terror.
The floor was cold and smooth under her bleeding feet and her fingers dug into his flesh. Suddenly, he was her only anchor; when she looked behind there was nothing but blackness. The doorway seemed to have disappeared. She was alone in the darkness, she would never find her way out, it pressed in on all sides. She clutched at him desperately, all reason gone, as the dark and the whispers came down upon her.
His hand was on hers and then suddenly there was a glimmer of light as he brought the ring forth. It shone in the darkness though there was no light to reflect upon it. He pushed it on her finger and th
en in a soft, soft voice he said, ‘Search child, search for me’. And with a wrench, he flung her from him and Shaan screamed as she fell into nothingness.
Tallis clung to Marathin, his hair streaming unbound in the wind, the rain in his face, as they raced man and serpent bound in one mind, toward his sister.
The Wild Lands swept by beneath them, the trees a dark mass of green and the river a black torrent flowing higher as the rain came down. Tallis directed the serpent instinctively toward her. He did not know exactly where she was, but he could feel her pain, like knives in his own flesh. It kindled a dark and terrible anger in his breast as it drew him on. It was Azoth doing that to her. His hands clenched into fists and the serpent beneath him felt his rage and her blood sang with fury.
They swooped down, following the river, and he saw the remains of a city half eaten by the jungle. A shudder shook Marathin’s body at the sight of it, and Tallis too felt a shiver of fear at coming upon the place where Azoth had once been a god.
I feel the old one, Marathin said, and Tallis knew she meant the older serpent Azoth rode upon. Good, then she will be close, he returned, Go there.
Arak is there, Marathin sent and he felt her fear.
Do not be afraid, he told her, I will protect you.
Hearing the truth in his words she gathered her wings, and with a flick of her tail, they dived down.
The world was gone; she was anchorless, adrift in the black. The voice was all around her, whispering, whispering, cold and soft, hard and wanting. And it was stretching her, pulling at her and everything was pain. She had no body, but she burned. Memories came to her like seeds thrown in the wind: a woman’s face, dark hair and pale cheeks; a flash of water against the bow of a ship; a candle flickering on a scrubbed table, and a man’s face black and grinning and more, much more. A kaleidoscope of life whirled through her and then one thought, just one: I’m dying.