by Jen Williams
To his surprise, the witch laughed – it was a dry, strangled sound.
‘Don’t you get that yet? This whole island is a place of lies.’
He looked back once more at the prone people on the walls. Men, women and children caught like flies in a web, and feasted on by monstrous creatures. All at once, it was very easy to see why the people of Sarn hated his kind.
‘Come on. They will not have left the island, and we have Vostok and Kirune to help us search.’
51
The journey back seemed faster to Noon, and she felt as if they walked in a nightmare. The vivid trees and plants, with their vibrant leaves and petals, were alien and hostile, one more part of this island that was false, a strange tropical paradise hidden in the midst of a cold ocean. Within her, the anger that had been slowly seething since they had arrived was a cauldron of rage, and periodically she took deep breaths to calm herself, to keep it inside. It was like the winnowfire, almost; a pressure within her chest and stomach that demanded to be released. She tried instead to focus on what would come next – soon, they would leave and travel back to Ebora, and leave this cursed place behind – but each time the images of the Poisonless would reassert themselves. A child’s foot, utterly clean and painfully soft where it had never touched the floor; a twisted green root erupting a finger’s breadth away from the dimple of skin that was someone’s navel; a wasted arm hanging loose and boneless; clouded eyes rolling away from lamplight; the stained floor where years of waste and food had been dropped and inadequately cleaned. And the silence. So many stolen voices.
Inevitably, she thought of the Winnowry, women growing old and wasted in the shadow of the Sisters’ contempt and disgust. Faces covered in ash, the shame and the damp.
‘Are you all right?’
Belatedly, she realised that she had been breathing hard. Tor looked ashen in the bright morning light, his face uncharacteristically grim and drawn.
‘No. Are you?’
He shook his head. ‘I wish we’d never come here.’
They didn’t speak again until they emerged into the clearing. At first, Noon thought they were alone, until Vostok abruptly emerged from behind one of the houses, the limp form of Micanal dangling between her jaws.
‘Fire and blood! Vostok, what . . .?’
The figure stirred weakly, and the dragon spat him onto the ground. The Eboran was covered in mud, his fine robes brown and sodden with it.
‘I have found our host,’ said Vostok. ‘Micanal the Clearsighted claimed at first to know nothing of what we found on the far side of the island, and attempted to laugh off the idea that Eboran history is a fabrication, but eventually conceded that he had, in fact, spoken to Eeskar, as you have.’
‘She tried to drown me.’ Micanal was getting very slowly to his feet. ‘A war-beast, laying its claws on an Eboran.’
‘I did not try to do anything,’ said Vostok. ‘If I wanted your lungs filled with river water, they would be.’
‘I was attempting to find the amber tablets.’ Having gained his feet, Micanal was trying to brush some of the mud from his heavy robes. In any other situation, Noon reflected, it would have looked comical. ‘It is right that you should have them, after all. And then you can return to Ebora.’
‘He was hiding.’ Vostok came forward, nearly knocking Micanal to the ground again. ‘What is it? What else have you discovered? I can feel the horror nestling in you, bright weapon.’
‘Prisoners,’ said Noon. Gratefully, she passed her arms around Vostok’s neck and hugged the dragon briefly. Her strength was like a warm fire on a freezing night. ‘Micanal and his sister have kept human prisoners here, feeding off them and torturing them, like parasites. Micanal, where is Arnia? I want to have a word with your bloody sister.’
‘Oh no. Not that. Of everything . . .’ Micanal passed a hand over his face, and age seemed to settle over him like a shroud. ‘Of all the terrible secrets here, I had hoped you would not discover that one.’
‘How could you do it?’ Tor was fidgeting with his sword belt. Where Micanal looked older, he abruptly looked younger; a child realising that his parents were not gods after all. ‘You saw the Carrion Wars, Micanal, you even wrote about them. Painted what happened there. How could you revisit that horror on more humans?’
‘It was Arnia.’ When Noon made a noise of disbelief, he held up his hands. ‘She brought them with her, in one of the ships. She told me she was bringing servants from the plains, and I shrugged it off – Arnia has always been fond of her comforts, and I understood that this would be a difficult journey for her. With all the chaos of travel, of readying ourselves to leave, I did not realise that she had brought many more humans than I had guessed. The others who came with us did not know either – perhaps only the captain of our ship knew the true number.’ Micanal sniffed. ‘They were kept in the hold, with cargo.’
‘Did they come willingly?’
‘Yes, or she said they did. Being an Eboran servant was not such a terrible life, and we firmly believed that we would be sailing into a new golden age for our people. But it was not. It was something else entirely.’ Micanal shuddered all over. ‘From what Vostok has said, you have been there, and you’ve spoken to . . . them. To the Aborans. Tormalin, you must understand what such a revelation did to me. To our company.’
Vostok blew hot air down her snout. ‘It made you a liar and a thief, it seems.’
‘I lost my mind,’ Micanal said simply. ‘There was no new Ygseril for us to care for, and no sap to heal us. Worse than that, we were a by-blow, an accident of science, of no great interest to the people who had created us. Our storied history was a joke, made worse because I knew we had left behind the rest of our people to die in agony. We faced the end, even as we discovered that our beginning was a sham.’ Micanal sighed, and passed muddy hands over his scalp. ‘I wandered for a long time, not seeing or thinking. When I returned to my senses, Arnia had had her own conversations with Eeskar, looking for ways to make our existence tenable. She is, in her own way, deeply pragmatic, and she and Eeskar had found a way to make human blood palatable. By the time I had discovered why she had truly brought them, she had already twisted them into what they are now.’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘The followers who came with us had much the same opinion as you, I’m afraid. They had lived through the Carrion Wars, and had no wish to live at the expense of humans. There was . . . a confrontation.’
‘You killed them?’ Tor shook his head slightly. ‘You mean you killed them? Those people trusted you!’
‘She summoned the Aborans’ monsters. Eeskar gave her a connection to them, and they . . . I had to stand with my sister. She has been my blood since the very moment I first opened my eyes.’
‘What about the tunnel on this side of the island? Arnia said it was your project.’ Noon watched the old man’s face carefully, but he just shook his head.
‘I thought there could be a way around it, a way for them to survive the roots, for it to be something they would only have to suffer temporarily. I tried, but the roots are so invasive. Human flesh ultimately cannot survive their removal.’
‘And do you also walk in their dreams?’ asked Tor.
‘No, that was always my task. And I enjoyed it.’ Arnia appeared from the trees, Kirune close behind her. She looked serene, her skin lustrous and shining, and Noon wondered if she had visited the Poisonless after they had – she did not seem surprised to see them, or concerned at their conversation with Micanal.
‘You admit it, then? That you manipulated them?’ Tor gripped the hilt of his sword. ‘Not enough that you make them prisoners and drink their blood, you warp their minds too.’
‘Oh please. You of all people have no place in pretending to be righteous. You drink the blood of humans too.’ Arnia smiled and tipped her head to one side, so that her black curls tumbled over her shoulder. ‘The skill of dream-walking has always been undervalued, I think. We never prized it in the same way we did art, or music.’ She sho
t a narrow glance at her brother, and then shrugged. ‘It’s an incredible tool, but we use it as a way to pass the time. I’ll admit, it has been somewhat monotonous, pottering around inside the heads of humans for hundreds of years. They are so tiny in their outlooks, and so limited.’ She looked at Noon and grinned. ‘But you have seen the results for yourselves. The Poisonless regard us as gods, and live their entire lives serving us – and when they die, their children do the same.’
‘You are monsters.’ Noon’s mouth felt awash with bile, but Arnia shrugged. Kirune had circled around the Eboran to move next to Tor’s side.
‘Do you think we care what you think of us, human? You people have always thought we were monsters. Why should we not take the title, and make it our own?’
Micanal bowed his head at that, but said nothing.
‘You’re no better than me. In fact, according to the weird six-legged thing Tor spoke to, you are me. Just humans who’ve been warped into something else.’
At this, Arnia lost her sneering smirk. ‘Leave now,’ she said. ‘Take your false war-beasts with you and go. There’s nothing you can do here. But Tormalin, you should stay. Stay with us. I know you wanted what I offered you – I felt it from your dreams, and from your body. Just think what I can give to you! Here, you can be young and strong forever, and never risk the crimson flux.’
Knowing she would regret it, Noon glanced up at Tor, and saw the guilty expression that flashed across his face. Something had gone on between them that she did not know about, and on the heels of that revelation she caught a murmur from Vostok – not of triumph, as her predictions were proved correct, but of sorrow. Somehow that was even worse.
‘There’s nothing for me here.’ Tor pushed his hair back from his face. ‘Ebora might be more or less dead, but we do have some standards.’
Arnia’s composed expression crumbled into one of disgust. For a strange moment, Noon thought she might actually spit at Tor, but instead the woman flapped a hand at him dismissively. ‘Get out. Leave my brother and me alone, then. Go back to your war and your disease and your deaths.’
Noon touched Vostok’s neck and took a little of the dragon’s life energy. It clouded her own hurt, softening it like a several glasses of wine all at once. She grinned.
‘Or, I could kill you.’ She stepped forward, and summoned twin gloves of green fire around her fists.
‘Noon . . .’ She felt Tor’s hand brush at her arm, and she shook it off. Much closer and more immediate was Vostok’s satisfaction. Yes, shining weapon.
Arnia and Micanal were backing away from the fire, and that was also satisfying.
‘What? Do you think I will leave here and allow you to continue treating those people like slaves? Leave their children as food for you?’ Noon laughed, and let the fires creep a little higher. It made so much sense. It was right that they should die for what they’d done.
‘Noon!’ This time Tor grabbed her arm and shook it, and she saw the white monsters from the Seed Carrier emerging from the trees on both sides of them. Their long necks weaved and danced like snakes, and their sharp teeth were bared in the sunshine. The sheer strangeness of their forms wiped all the building triumph from her body, and the winnowflames stuttered.
‘The Aborans might not care much for us, but Eeskar is curious enough to speak to me,’ said Arnia. ‘We’ve worked together over the years. He was interested to see what the roots could do to human bodies. He’s not interested in letting that experiment go just yet. So, he allows me to summon his creatures, just as he did when Micanal’s idiotic friends tried to turn against me.’ The Eboran woman gestured to the monsters, and they swarmed in at once – almost instantly they were surrounded. ‘I gave you the chance to leave,’ shouted Arnia. ‘Remember that!’
Noon scrambled for Vostok’s back, but the seed-monsters were alarmingly fast. Jaws closed around her boot and yanked her back down into the dirt, while Vostok whirled, her mouth boiling with violet flames. Tor had been luckier, and he and Kirune were in the air, circling above. Noon caught a glimpse of his face as he leaned over the war-beast’s side, and then she was being dragged rapidly through the mud. A second later, and the air was full of fire the colour of an eventful sunset, and several of the creatures screamed. The monster dragging her sunk its teeth in and her foot lit up with bright, burning pain.
‘Bastards!’ With some difficulty she twisted around and sent a surge of green flame towards the long-necked beast. Her attack was narrow and focussed, and she watched with satisfaction as its smooth white skin turned yellow and then black, but it fell forward over her legs and her own fire licked dangerously against her trousers. Yelping, Noon rolled herself forcefully in the mud and felt the cold muck extinguish the flames, but then another of the monsters reached down for her, jaws gaping. She had a glimpse of Vostok behind it, and the sight chilled her blood; the dragon was covered in the white monsters, and despite her considerable size and strength, they were keeping her down on the ground – one of them, she saw, had ripped out chunks of the feathers from her wings, which were now falling down around them in a soft rain. Outraged, Noon sent a ball of flame directly into the maw of the monster gaping at her, only to be knocked to the ground again.
She had lost sight of Arnia and her brother, but Kirune swept down from above and she saw Tor’s sword slicing through the monsters, a lethal silver blur, and then they were down in the clearing amongst them, Kirune lashing out with claws and teeth. Noon blasted the monsters nearest to her, the heat from her own fire pushing at her skin. With Vostok, Kirune and Tor all on the ground and in the midst of the monsters, she could not use the fire as she had done within the Seed Carrier itself – not without potentially killing her allies.
‘Tor! Help me free Vostok!’ Tor turned at the sound of her voice and without a second’s hesitation jumped down from Kirune’s back and ran towards the dragon, his sword dealing death as he went. Noon joined him, and with as much care as she could, threw her green flames against the monsters that were suffocating her dragon. One by one they fell away, burning, but more were swarming through the forest all the time, and it was clear they would soon be overwhelmed if they couldn’t get back into the air.
‘Get on Kirune and get away,’ Tor snapped at her. He had his sword embedded in the neck of the nearest creature, and his face was set and furious. Ignoring him, Noon pressed her hand to the flank of the nearest creature, and ignoring her repulsion at the touch of its unpleasantly smooth skin, attempted to rip the life energy from it. The energy came in a rush, and it was unlike anything she had felt – slow and heavy and sharp, more like the energy of a plant than an animal. Something about it filled her with a kind of horror, and then beyond that she sensed something else. The creature was pressed next to another of its kind, skin to skin, and that was next to another. It would be so easy to just reach, and then take . . .
Noon jumped back, her hands held away from her. She had been filled with an icy black terror that had nothing to do with the chaos around her, and it was difficult to think, let alone fight. A long, muscular neck looped around her waist, pulling her towards a waiting pack of monsters, but her head was full of the smell of plains’ grass, and the sound of the wind.
‘Noon!’
She blinked once, coming back to herself. Tor was trying to reach her, his face wild with panic, while Vostok reared up, attempting to shake off the monsters that were clinging to her, and somewhere behind her she could hear Kirune roaring his displeasure. Noon let go of the energy that had been nestling in her chest – gladly, as it had been sitting there like a fat, oily snake – and the seed-monsters that were around her were abruptly blown into steaming, smoking chunks. She staggered, momentarily disorientated, only to see more of the things streaming out of the trees towards them.
And then . . . they all stopped. They paused as one, as if waiting for something, and Noon realised she had been hearing another voice under all the chaos. Slowly, she turned and peered through the smoke to see Micanal stand
ing amidst the white bodies, with Arnia kneeling in front of him. He had hold of her hair in one fist, a sharp whittling knife held at her throat.
‘Stop it,’ he was saying. ‘Command the monsters to leave.’
Arnia curled her lip, her beautiful face finally ugly in its outrage. ‘Coward. You were always too weak, Micanal, too much of a dreamer. You would choose their lives over ours? You would die here, wasting away into nothing?’
‘By the roots,’ said Micanal. ‘Yes, gladly. I choose that gladly.’
In a jerky, violent motion, he cut his sister’s throat. Black Eboran blood spurted from the slash, and Noon saw the surprise and outrage in the woman’s eyes before her brother pushed her down into the dirt. There were tears streaming down his lined face. He dropped the knife, and as if in response to that, the seed-monsters also fell, as if suddenly lifeless.
‘What have you done?’ shouted Tor. He stumbled his way across the fallen bodies of the seed-monsters, but it was clear the woman was already dead. She lay in an ever-increasing pool of her own blood; to Noon it looked like ink. With shaking hands, she rubbed at her eyes.
‘It’s the only way,’ said Micanal. He bent to his sister’s body and stroked her hair, pulling it gently through his fingers. ‘Those humans are free now, and I can grow old and die. That’s all I ever wanted to do, once we knew the truth. But I couldn’t leave her alone, not here, in the shadow of our broken history. She was my sister. How could I ever leave her, alone?’
Noon looked at Tor in time to see an anguished expression pass over his face, and then it was gone.
‘For what it’s worth, Micanal, I am sorry. I’m –’ He lifted his arms, then dropped them to his sides. ‘I’m sorry that we even came here.’
Noon pulled her hands through her hair, feeling it stand up stiff and untidy with sweat. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of this shit hole.’
Despite their eagerness to leave, it was a few days before they were ready. Both Noon and Vostok had sustained some injuries in the fight, and Tor was keen to take supplies with them that weren’t dried salted meat. Noon, without much guilt, spent some time gathering food and drink from the dwellings, and Tor filled one of their bags with fresh fruit from the surrounding trees. They didn’t see much of Micanal. He took Arnia’s body away and presumably buried it somewhere, and then he kept out of their way until the day they started to attach their travel bags to the harnesses.