The White Towers

by Andy Remic

  The elf rat hit the ground, and slowly the tendrils started to retract into its dead, motionless hands.

  “What the fuck are they?” snapped Dek.

  “They’re like roots,” said Zastarte, pushing the long slim tentacles with his boot. Within a half minute, they’d gone completely, leaving the hacked-open elf rat prostrate and, barely, human in its embrace of death.

  Kiki glanced over at the tower, face grim. “‘Thin roots which come from their hands, they can crawl inside your brains through ears and nose and mouth and rip your head apart with a simple tug’,” she quoted, grimly. “Do you think that was one of them? Tree Stalkers, I mean?”

  “I think, possibly,” said Zastarte. “But Sameska seemed to think these Tree Stalkers were special elite hunters. This thing we killed, here, was a guard. I assume it was guarding something?”

  “I reckon we caught it in the middle of something,” agreed Dek, hefting his black sword.

  “Let’s go have a look then,” said Kiki, and gave a cold smile, without humour.

  She led the way to the tower entrance, and placed one foot tentatively over the step. The quests she had cut free were gone, shrivelled to an almost nothing of pale skin; like a shed snake-skin.

  It was dark. It smelled bad. Metallic, like vinegar prickling at her nostrils. There were two rooms on the ground floor with nothing but basic furniture, several overturned chairs and three chests against one wall, all open, mostly empty except for some discarded weapons, axes and knives. In the corner, leaned three old spears. Kiki gave a silent gesture to ascend, and the other Iron Wolves nodded.

  The stone steps led up a narrow channel in a tight spiral, a device used to make defending these stairwells beneficial to the defenders, and Kiki climbed with wary, carefully-placed footsteps. As her head breached the next floor, so the stench became incredibly over-powering, and she nearly gagged. A sound came to them, then, a low groaning, an ululation of constant sound, rising and falling, like breathing, and coming from many mouths… A short wall obscured Kiki’s view. But then she came out into the wide open room and she stopped dead, staring. There were perhaps twenty people in the room, crouched naked and hunched into upright, near-foetal positions. There were a mixture of men and women, thin and fat, with different hair colourings, differing bruises and scabs on naked, scraped and battered flesh. But each one had a thick sprout of tendrils emerging from the tops of their skulls, then falling like tentacles of flesh to wind and curl and curve around the torsos and limbs of their victims, as if each person was in a prison of flesh-coloured, snake-thick strands, each winding and twisting on individual paths to create a cage purpose-built for that specific individual.

  “What the fuck…” hissed Dek through clenched teeth.

  In response to the sound, the tentacle coils slid greasily together, seemed to tighten around the people caught in these root-like traps. Kiki gestured for Dek to be silent, and they found themselves feeling suddenly sick. Whatever had happened to these poor people, their skulls had been invaded by some alien intrusion or device. As the tentacles, or quests, or whatever the fuck they were, tightened, so the sounds emanating from entrapped mouths increased in pitch, rising to a wail that made Kiki shudder to the very core of her being, hackles raised on the back of her neck and arms.

  Kiki crept forward and knelt close – but not too close – to the nearest woman. Her sagging breasts were held unnaturally upright by a thick limb, which then curled tight across her belly and dropped between her legs, winding back up around her left thigh until it… Kiki turned and vomited through her fingers, a gagging acidic spray mimicking the stench in the air. Dek was beside her, cradling her, lifting her, and the Iron Wolves moved back to the steps, hurriedly down and out into the fresh air.

  Kiki leaned against the stone. “One went inside her, up through her vagina, and another through her belly button.”

  “Like an elf rat umbilical cord?” said Zastarte.

  “What?”

  “A controlling device. Keeping them alive? Maybe controlling them?”

  “Why don’t they leap up and attack us then?” snarled Dek.

  Zastarte shrugged. “Maybe they weren’t… ready. I don’t know. It’s only a thought.” He was pale, licking his lips nervously, left hand clenching and unclenching.

  “Well, they’re still alive,” said Dek. “Suffering.”

  “What do you want to do?” Kiki’s eyes were wide and she looked suddenly, incredibly vulnerable; like a child again.

  “What you have to do when any decent creature is suffering. You end their misery.”

  “We haven’t got time for this,” said Kiki, weariness settling across her like ash from a crematorium chimney.

  “You and Zastarte, go and check the city. I’ll go get an axe,” Dek growled.

  Kiki met his gaze. It was hard as iron, his mouth a grim line.

  “Maybe that’s not the only way?”

  “I’ll try and remove one of the things first. If that doesn’t work, then I’m not leaving our kind to suffer.”

  Kiki gave a nod and, with Zastarte, headed back to the road. Without a backward glance, Dek entered the dark doorway of the tower.

  They were a hundred yards from the towering gates of Junglan when a shriek cut through the air, one of the most high, piercing sounds Kiki had ever heard in her life. It ended abruptly, and with a distant thud. Zastarte glanced back, but could see nothing; no sign of Dek, and no sign of any more elf rats.

  “You OK, Kiki?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was a savage sight, was it not?”

  “Yes. One of the worst.”

  “Can you not… you know?”

  “What?”

  “Use the Shamathe thing? The earth magick, or whatever it is.”

  “It’s a power born of rocks and trees and the mountains. And it’s almost random, Zast. I don’t control it. By the Seven Sisters, the bastard seems to control me!”

  “Oh.”

  Their boots skidded a good distance before the gate, and they stopped, looking up at the vast, black edifice. Narrow archer shots could be seen near the top, and Kiki felt, again, incredibly vulnerable. It was not a feeling she enjoyed.

  “They’ve taken it, have they not?” Zastarte’s eyes looked just a little haunted.

  “Yes.”

  “And if we go in, it’ll be the same thing that happened back in Zanne?”

  “I believe so.”

  Suddenly, Kiki cupped her hands around her mouth. “ Hello in there! Can anybody hear me? We’re weary travellers looking for an inn for the night.” Her words reverberated back to her from the vast gateway, metallic and strangely hollow. It made her feel less than human.

  She glanced back, back up the road, to where Dek had emerged from the tower and placed the twin heads of the axe at his feet, both hands resting on the end of the shaft. The blades were covered in blood. Dek’s face was ashen.

  “We need to get moving,” said Zastarte, voice gentle. “The city has fallen.” Kiki gave a nod, felt herself crumbling, felt the whole of the fucking mess welling up inside her, forcing up from her belly through her throat and out through hot tears which coursed down her cheeks. Zastarte put his arm around her, hugged her, and they moved slowly back up the road. Dek and Zastarte locked gazes as they drew close. Dek’s face was filled with a low-level rage, brows narrowed in a murderous look that sent a shiver down Zastarte’s spine.

  “You get it done?”

  “Yes,” said Dek.

  “They’re all dead?”

  Dek looked away. “All of them,” he said.

  They climbed out of the valley on weary mounts, their morale low and ebbing further away. The rest of the day was spent heading east along sweeping dirt roads packed with snow, that finally climbed into high hills; the roads became increasingly winding, and the hills acted as a channel for driving winds, which made all three wrap in their blankets and lower heads against the wild shrieking, the violent buffeting.

&nb
sp; The landscape had a wild, savage look, littered with massive rocks from an ancient ice-age, and sometimes even huge hunks of rusted iron. The trio stopped on several occasions, staring at massive blocks of rust, with ancient pipes and gear wheels, pulleys and levers. Some seemed to be mining devices, and the Iron Wolves could trace a long line of old cables down boulder-littered hillsides.

  They camped in the lee of one such ancient behemoth, with its toothed wheels and cables thicker than a man’s thigh, and which lay at a right-angle to a tall black wall of slate. Dek built a fire on which to cook some hot food, but also to try and cheer them up. The world seemed increasingly desolate, increasingly pointless.

  They ate, and Zastarte produced a small flask of rum. It was bitter and strong, and Kiki drank deep before the tears left her and a rosy glow attended her cheeks. Dek had failed to comfort her during the long ride, and they’d eaten in silence; but now, he sat beside her, put his arms around her shoulders, and she snuggled her head to his chest.

  “Do you remember that time in Drakerath? We were on leave for a week, not long after the War of Zakora had finished. We were still in high spirits, the Heroes of the Hour, and were pissed and honeyed up to our eyeballs in some leaf-peddling back-street cellar den run by the Red Thumbs.”

  Kiki glanced up. “We did that a lot, Dek. You thinking of any time specific?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “Some dandy bastard tried to pick you up. Twirled around in front of you, I actually think he was dancing, and I actually believe that he believed he looked rather grand.”

  “I remember that!” snapped Zastarte. “You broke his nose!”

  “And he challenged you to a duel.” Kiki grinned, and it felt good. “Yes. I do remember now.”

  “Out into the snow you two went, both drunk as lords, as high as an eagle’s fart. You danced around for a while, missing each other with each sweep of your swords, until Dalgoran intervened and took away your weapons. Made you settle it with fists. But even then, you could hardly bloody hit one another!”

  “You rolled around in the snow for a bit, then just lay there giggling, like children.”

  “Yes, yes, I remember it very well,” said Dek, and hugged Kiki tighter. “Because it was the first night we made love under the influence of the honey-leaf.”

  “Ahh, the beautiful leaf,” said Kiki, then saw the look in Zastarte’s eye.

  “Yes?” She tilted her head.

  “We know you have some,” said Zastarte, voice low and level. Non-judgemental.

  “Saw you take it,” agreed Dek.

  There came an awkward silence. Kiki stared at Zastarte, then up at Dek, then down at the ground. She kicked her boot against the icy hardness, then leaned forward, and warmed her hands against the soft-crackling flames.

  “Don’t make me get rid of it,” she said, her words little more than whispers on the wind. “It’s one of the few things that keeps me going.”

  Again, Dek and Zastarte exchanged a glance over Kiki’s head. Dek gave a sharp cough, and Kiki looked up. “Er,” he said, then cleared his throat properly. “It wasn’t that we wanted you to get rid of it, as such, Captain.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “We wanted to fucking share it, girl. You’re not the only one suffering through these harsh times.”

  Kiki met his gaze. Saw the grin, the skeletal baring of teeth, and yet looked through the grin and saw the pain hiding like a mask of silk strands beneath his real human flesh. She saw the glimmer of pain in his eyes. And she realised, understood, with sudden clarity – like being dropped naked into a pool of ice-melt – and a gasp, that gods, she wasn’t the only bloody person in this damn miserable world who wanted, needed, a bit of chemical stimulation once in a while. And sometimes, sometimes ale and whiskey, they just weren’t enough.

  “It hit you hard, didn’t it? Back at the tower.”

  “Let’s say I’ve lived through better moments,” rumbled Dek.

  “So, come on, show us your stash,” said Zastarte, holding out his hand, dark eyes glimmering with fire demons. “It was coins, right?”

  Kiki nodded, and dug out her pouch, and coyly undid the string. “I’ll share, but only on one condition.”

  “Name it,” said Dek.

  “I never have to clean another pan, spoon or plate for the rest of this mission.”

  “Sounds like a fair trade,” agreed Dek, amiably.

  “Now hold on,” snapped Zastarte.

  “What?”

  “A man like me, well, he has his fingernails to think about.”

  Dek stared at him. Hard. “You what?”

  “OK, OK,” relinquished the dandy, with an almost feminine toss of his head. “I suppose I can clean the odd spoon.”

  Kiki handed both men a small coin of compressed, refined honey-leaf, and then took one herself and carefully replaced the pouch deep inside her clothing, in the secret pocket she’d stitched there herself. Close to her heart. Her twin hearts. The heart of the Shamathe…

  “After you, gentlemen.”

  And slowly, all three placed a honey-leaf coin beneath their tongues, and their eyes grew bright, and they shared that intimate moment of the honey-leaf user, of knowing exactly – in an unpredictable way – of what was about to come. Because the beauty, or maybe the curse, of the leaf was that, each and every time, the drug manifested itself in different ways.

  “You remember that time we were talking about?” said Dek, dreamily.

  “In Drakerath? The first time we made love, after taking the leaf?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “Want to do it again?”

  “I think that would be – magical.” The fire, the stars, the moon, the world, all had taken on a glowing, surreal edge; and when she turned her head, every single point of light in the universe trailed sparks. Like she was a god.

  Dek took her head gently in his huge hands, and kissed her. She tasted him, and he her, and their tongues played, and their lips moved languorously as the remains of the honey-leaf dissolved and flowed down their throats and into their veins and the world seemed soft as down…

  A cough. Dek opened one eye.

  “I have a proposition,” said Zastarte, who was reclining against a rock, one leg kinked at the knee.

  Dek broke the kiss with Kiki, and it took her a few moments to realise. Then her eyes drifted open and she turned, as if floating, and gradually focused on Zastarte.

  “What do you mean?” she whispered, drifting out a smile.

  “How about a threesome?” Zastarte gave a broad wink. “I am a skilled and generous lover.” He fixed his dark eyes on Dek. “With women and with men.”

  Dek nearly choked. “Get fucked, you fucking queer!”

  “That, I think, was the whole idea,” smiled Zastarte, placing his fingertips together to create a steeple before him. “What do you say, Kiki? I am handsome, am I not? I have seen you watch my naked limbs in the forest, the times when I changed, the times I bathed in woodland pools. What say you?”

  “I…”

  “She fucking says no, is what she fucking says!” snapped Dek.

  “Why don’t you let her answer?”

  “Why don’t I snap your fucking neck?”

  “Are you so afraid of the repressed sexuality every man carries within himself? Dek, my dear, dear love, there is no male, and there is no female; there is just fucking, and sensuous pleasure, and the constraints placed on us by a so-called civilised society. Let the honey-leaf free your mind, Dek. You’ll soon realise my cock tastes as fine as any quim.”

  Dek went to surge to his feet, but Kiki clung onto him. “Wait,” she said, “wait.”

  “As always, resorting to violence.” Zastarte carried a gentle mocking on his face. “The great pit fighter, more interested in defending a fake government imposed honour than actually using his brain, using his body, and pursuing that greatest of beautiful pursuits: physical ejaculation.”

  “I’ll knock out all your teeth,” hissed Dek.

  “Yes?”

  “
We’ll see how well you do with the ladies then.” He gave a nasty smile. “And the men.”

  “Dek, calm down.” Kiki slapped him, a sudden stinging blow, then rolled back, giggling. She turned on Zastarte. “The reason it has to be a no, Sweet Prince, is nothing to do with sexuality, or prudishness; but everything to do with me being utterly, and totally, in love with Dek; and willing to bind myself to a concept of monogamy because of that all-consuming love. Now.” She smiled sweetly. “Go to sleep, Zastarte. Or go and keep watch. Or pleasure yourself beneath your blankets. Me and Dek, we have some loving to catch up on.”

  And she fucked him. And it was amazing. The sensation, the flavours, the buzz running through her veins and through her brain. They writhed and moaned under their blankets, occasionally a leg or peeping breast highlighted by the orange glow of the flames. They no longer cared about the elf rats. They no longer cared about mud-orcs, or King Yoon or Orlana the Changer; the hunting Tree Stalkers or any of that fanciful fantastical horse shit. The sex was totally incredible: gentle and wild, subtle and brutal, vague and intense, the best sex Kiki had ever had. And even though Dek came, they carried on, and he came again as she clawed his back and bit his chest like a… she-wolf, and the honey-leaf tasted bitter in her mouth now and Suza was laughing a distant, sleazy laughter edged with the caw of crows plucking eyes on an ancient battlefield, and she thought of the Great Lie, and how if Dek knew about the Great Lie, how she had used the magick to change herself, how if Dek knew how she’d really looked at her moment of creation – well, how he wouldn’t fuck her in a million years. Not even with Zastarte’s dick. And she fell tumbling into an umbilical well of despondency and desolation; down the long dark slippery tube, and the fall lasted a million years, ending with a retarded birth.