by A. J. Smith
‘You’re enjoying yourself,’ he whispered, feeling sparks of elation flying from the creeping dark-blood.
‘I’m sneaking into a city to avenge my family. It’s exciting.’
He smiled, making her frown at the wrongness of the human expression on his grey face. ‘I’m enjoying myself too,’ he replied. ‘Usually I’d just fly over the walls and perch on a building. It’s nice to try it the hard way for a change.’
‘What?’ Her face screwed up.
They were close to the door now, and clear of any meaningful patrols. The doorway was wide, with solid oak, barred in the middle. Sacks of grain were piled outside, but no-one stood watch.
‘Shall we go?’ he asked.
‘You can fly?’ she replied.
He tilted his head, but didn’t answer. It was a simple kind of humour, but he enjoyed the look on her face. Keisha had not yet seen him take other shapes and he planned to surprise her at some point. He was sure that it would be funny. Once she’d stopped shouting at him.
He darted across the last few feet of darkness and stood beneath an arched canopy, dug into the outer wall. The door wasn’t locked, but removing the bar would not be quiet; nor did the huge, steel hinges appear oiled. Nanon imagined there would be a sharp creak were he to simply pull open the door.
Keisha stood next to him in the shadowy doorway, her face still locked in confusion. ‘You have to answer my questions. That hasn’t changed.’
‘Yes, I can fly,’ he replied. ‘When I’m a bird – or a bat, or a griffin. I’m sure there are other shapes I could take that have wings, though I’ve not tried them.’
‘You can change shape? How?’
He tilted his head and realized that he couldn’t remember his training. He couldn’t even remember who had taught him about other shapes, nor how he had acquired the ability. ‘I’m very old. There are lots of things I struggle to remember. Now, how shall we open this door?’
She shook her head in frustration and turned to inspect the door. He felt her mind churning with possibilities as she assessed the hinges, the bar, the weeds growing from gaps in the stonework, but she’d largely stopped thinking about Nanon’s ability to change shape. This was good. She was able to keep focus and remain in the now, no matter how strange her surroundings. She frowned, then smiled, poking her head out of the alcove and taking note of nearby patrols. ‘Just open it,’ she said.
‘And the noise?’ he queried. ‘They’ll come and check a sudden creak from a door that shouldn’t be creaking. And they’ll find an unbarred door that shouldn’t be unbarred.’
She didn’t appear to consider these things important. ‘So they hear a creak and see an unbarred door. These aren’t elite soldiers. If they look inside they’ll see a dark silo. In such a place I’d bet on you and me being able to evade any man who pokes his head inside.’
He considered it. Perhaps his slow, methodical approach was not always correct. Perhaps just opening doors sometimes was the wise course. ‘I’d bet on us too,’ he replied. ‘If I fully understood the concept of gambling.’
She tested the bar and found that, with a little effort, it could be coaxed out of its niche on the rusted doorframe. She lifted it only as high as was needed and then waved him back to keep an eye on the patrolling men. ‘The next bit makes noise,’ she whispered, taking a firm hold of the door handle.
Nanon held up a hand, telling her to wait. When the nearest men reached the most distant point of their patrols, before they turned back towards the secluded door, he lowered his hand and nodded. She grunted, and strained against the handle. For a second nothing happened, then there was a grating of metal, and a thin dusting of rust covered the ground. The hinges emitted a sharp creak and the heavy door groaned outwards. She swung herself through the narrow opening, followed quickly by Nanon, and an instant later he’d pulled the door closed behind them. The sound of the door had been a murmur, not a shout, but would certainly be investigated.
The silo was in complete darkness, visible to his Dokkalfar eyes as a grey twilight world of barrels and sacks, piled from the sunken floor to the vaulted ceiling. Keisha, unable to see as clearly, had quickly edged along the wall and found a line of broken crates to move behind. He was impressed. She grasped things quickly, more than just how to hold a katana or stay hidden; the girl was perceptive and adaptable – and would become increasingly dangerous to her enemies.
‘Nanon, hide,’ she whispered once she was well concealed.
He could hear men approaching the door, complaining about the need to investigate. A few seconds before they opened the door, he hopped to the side, silently took the shape of a rat and crawled under a thick pile of burst grain sacks.
Moonlight streamed into the silo as the guards flung open the door. Three men holding torches, with a handful more staying outside. They scanned the cobweb-ridden warehouse from the doorway.
‘Probably nothing,’ grunted a man of Ro.
‘Someone opened the door,’ replied another. ‘But I don’t want to go rooting through this place. If it was thieves, they lucked out – as much rotten grain and mouldy bread as they can carry. If they find a way out.’
The guardsmen shared a laugh and retreated outside. They seemed to have little desire to do actual investigative work. The moonlight disappeared and the bar was replaced, leaving the silo in darkness. Nanon snuffled out from his concealment and scampered across, still in rat form, to give Keisha a nice surprise.
***
The silo was one of dozens, and adjoined hundreds more underground warehouses and countless vaulted chambers. Weir was almost as large underground as it was on the surface, but far darker. Once Keisha had stopped shouting about Nanon’s ability to turn into a rat, the two of them made good time through the underground highways, encountering nothing but insects and vermin.
Travelling from the port side to the Old Town had been tricky, and required crawling through tunnels that provided water to the poorer areas of the city, but getting wet was the worst inconvenience they faced. As they took rest in a former wine cellar, Nanon considered how close he’d have to be to locate the Mistress of Pain. He’d tried every hour since they’d entered the city, and it was now well past midnight. Each attempt had been met with the same lack of success and the same sharp pain.
‘Try again,’ said Keisha, looking impatiently up a vertical passageway, at the top of which was a sewer covering. ‘We can’t just wander around the catacombs all night.’
He hadn’t told her, but he was becoming concerned. When last he’d sensed the enchantress she’d been weak and steadily going mad, unable to keep her mind in order or understand the twisted contortions of thought caused by so many thralls. Now her very presence was elusive, as if she was being actively protected from his scrying. And there was something else, something causing him pain, something old and dark, festering in the Mistress of Pain’s shadow.
‘I’ve been trying since we got inside the city. I’ll try again when I’ve rested. Each time I try I... brush against something. It takes much effort.’
She came and sat next to him on the lower shelves of a disused wine rack. Her expression was a cross between concern and tolerance. ‘I’m not stupid,’ she said. ‘I know there’s a problem. If you tell me what it is, I might be able to help.’
He groaned, unsure how to explain the restrictions he was feeling. She certainly wasn’t stupid, but she was human. He understood her as much as any human he’d spent time with – more so in some ways; certainly as much as he ever understood her father. This did not make the explanation any easier.
‘Something’s protecting her,’ he replied. ‘She might be protecting herself. But she couldn’t have done it the last time I sensed her. I’m worried that if I push too hard... I’ll see something I don’t want to see.’
Keisha nodded, but her eyes were narrow and Nanon could tell she didn’t really understand. ‘If you can’t find her we might as well go back to the forest. I’m not trying to be mean, but w
e can’t kill her if we can’t find her.’
It was a logical assessment of their situation and far more direct than he was used to from a human. If he calmed his mind and remained still while he searched, perhaps he could find her. ‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘But you’ll have to watch over me. My body will be vulnerable while my mind searches.’
She looked at him as if he’d said something utterly incomprehensible. ‘You’re going to do something strange, aren’t you?’
He smiled and closed his eyes, swaying gently against the stone wall. His mind glided away from the frowning Kirin girl and left the wine cellar in search of the enchantress. He was now committed, with the trivialities of walking and talking just a discarded distraction. He moved upwards, through layers of stone and open, dusty chambers, until his mind felt the nightly breeze and saw the dark streets of Ro Weir. There was no trail to follow, no obvious direction or shining light, telling him where to look. He could feel the thoughts of a hundred thousand men and women, but the enchantress was not among them. A background hum of equal parts despair and malevolence infused the city, but it had no focus he could discern. It was a huge spider’s web with an invisible spider. Where was she? He looked to the centre of the Old Town, to the castellations of the knight marshal’s barracks and the squat opulence of the duke’s residence. He couldn’t sense the enchantress in either building. All he felt was a dull pain and a shadow, just out of sight.
He pushed his mind out further, extending tendrils of thought into the city. Soldiers, nobles, merchants, slaves; the hidden, the afraid, the confident, the insane. But no Seven Sister. He finally admitted to himself that he knew what obscured Saara the Mistress of Pain. On some level he’d known since he had first failed to locate her. The shadow that caused him pain was divine. It was a tentacle of the Dead God and it was wrapped round the enchantress like an iron blanket. He couldn’t touch her – or even find her. To try would be to pit his strength against that of Shub-Nillurath. He doubted that even a dark-blood could strike at her, so powerful had she become.
The pain became unbearably sharp and all-encompassing. Something had seen him. Something knew where he was. Another presence had sent its mind into the darkness of Weir, looking for the enchantress. Something dark, filled with hate and hunger. It looked from every angle at once, using senses unknown to Nanon. It was not man or Dokkalfar. It was like nothing he’d ever felt and it looked at him with interest. He gently pulled back the edges of his mind, afraid that any sudden actions would startle the hate-filled presence. It let him retreat, making him aware that it could snap at him if it wished, like a bird of prey eyeing a mouse.
He opened his eyes and was back in the dusty wine cellar, breathing heavily. His senses felt raw and exposed, as if the strange presence had scraped its teeth across his mind. Nanon rubbed his eyes and coughed, feeling drained and naked. He suddenly looked up. Where was the Kirin girl?
‘Keisha!’ he said, as loudly as he dared.
‘Over here,’ she replied, a catch of breathless awe in her voice.
Nanon staggered to his feet, using the wall as support, and edged towards her voice. In the gloomy cellar, surrounded by broken wood and dusty bottles of wine, the girl stood motionless, looking up at something in the darkness. The pain returned to his head, though now it was merely dull and uncomfortable.
‘Keisha!’ he repeated.
A throaty growl seeped from the shadows and Nanon’s hand went to his longsword.
‘Don’t,’ snapped Keisha. ‘It won’t hurt me.’
Before he could ask what it was, the darkness slowly retreated like an insidious curtain to reveal shades of black, formed into a feline aberration, towering over the young dark-blood. As its head and limbs came into focus, Nanon saw a creature – almost a Dark Young, but somehow different – hunkering down and inspecting Keisha. The thing had four muscular limbs, three of which ended in a mass of clicking feelers. The fourth – its right back leg – appeared to be severed at the knee, though the injury did not hamper its movements. Its head was stretched in the middle and sharp at each end, with its mouth nothing more than a horizontal slice.
Keisha reached out towards the creature and it did not retreat, growl or attack. It lowered its strange head and allowed her to touch its flesh. She gasped, stroking her hand across the shimmering black head. The surface shifted and flowed under her touch, forming into a mockery of a human face all too familiar to both of them. Nanon didn’t know how to react. He’d sensed the death of Rham Jas, and he’d known some defilement had plagued his friend in death, but he had never imagined this.
‘Father,’ said Keisha, in barely a whisper.
The creature didn’t react, though the face gained texture and expression as it looked at her through her father’s eyes. It slowly padded round the girl, ignoring Nanon and appearing almost protective.
‘Be careful,’ he warned. ‘That is not your father.’
The creature snapped at him, showing a line of jagged, glassy teeth and crouching between Nanon and Keisha. It didn’t attack, but the old Tyr knew with certainty that it could kill him if it wanted to.
‘I won’t hurt me,’ repeated Keisha. ‘Don’t make it think you’re a threat.’
He tilted his head, staying on the balls of his feet and preparing to move if needed. He could feel nothing of Rham Jas within the beast, but he did not extend his mind to look closely. He feared the creature was beyond him, perhaps beyond everything.
‘If you can sense something in this thing, you should tell me,’ said Nanon, keeping his dark eyes on the shimmering black creature.
‘I feel its blood,’ replied Keisha. ‘Its heat, its strength. It’s a dark-blood, like me. It wants something... to tell us something... to show us something.’
Nanon could feel nothing but hate coming from the beast and he was scared for his companion. The creature had certainly once been Rham Jas Rami. It had once been Keisha’s father and Nanon’s friend. Now it was a servant of Shub-Nillurath. That at least was beyond doubt.
‘We can’t trust it,’ he whispered. ‘We need to leave.’
The creature opened its mouth, hissing between gnashing teeth. It reacted to Nanon’s words, showing anger but still not attacking. It crept backwards until it stood over Keisha’s shoulder, pointing its sharp head at the forest dweller. He didn’t doubt that it meant Keisha no harm, but he had no such certainty about himself. He pushed his mind out a little further, trying to find something to trust in the aberration. It let him, keeping its malevolent power in check, until Nanon located a tiny speck of a familiar mind. Rham Jas was in there, though twisted and primal and barely a memory of the man he’d been. But enough to sense the blood of his daughter.
‘I’m sorry for you, Kirin man,’ he said, stepping towards the malformed head. ‘I know who you now serve, and that you have no choice.’
‘What does it want to show us?’ asked Keisha.
Nanon was hesitant to delve any further into its mind, until it approached him closely and bowed its head. Close up it was terrible and beautiful in equal measure. The lines of its body suggested a Dark Young mixed with a predatory cat and a sentient shadow. It was a servant of Shub-Nillurath that did not consider them enemies. The conundrum of its thoughts was enough to make the old Tyr curious and he reached out just a little more. He felt its depthless hatred and hunger, and glided round their sharp edges to the tiny speck of humanity that remained. Two faces dominated the speck, both women, one wreathed in love, the other in hatred. It had come back to Weir for the Mistress of Pain, but, like Nanon, had been unable to find her. Instead it had found its daughter – and it was confused.
‘It appears Shub-Nillurath fosters little unity among his followers,’ he said. ‘This creature wants to kill the Seven Sister as much as us, but it can’t. They’re rivals for their god’s affection. It wants to help us kill her.’
‘What of my father?’ asked Keisha.
Nanon hesitated. Perhaps the tiny speck of Rham Jas still had powe
r, but everything else he sensed from the Aberration was infused with devotion to Shub-Nillurath. ‘Your father is dead, but his love for his daughter is not. He died looking at you, thinking about how he’d let you down. It was his last and only thought when they removed his head. Such thoughts linger... such thoughts are powerful indeed.’
Keisha’s lip quivered and tears formed in her eyes. She turned round, not wanting to look at the creature that had been her father. The Aberration padded after her, whining like a wounded animal. It nudged at her shoulder, hissing in agitation, but she shrugged it away. It gnashed its teeth together, splitting the face of Rham Jas in two, but she didn’t turn. Then it roared, a vile gurgle, wreathed in anguish.
‘Quiet!’ snapped Keisha, turning to face the creature. ‘If you will help we will let you help – but you are not my father. My father was killed by Saara the Mistress of Pain. You are just a monster.’ She drew Rham Jas’s katana. ‘I will cut off your remaining three legs if you do anything I don’t like.’
Nanon’s eyes were wide. He held his breath, ready to arm himself, but the creature remained silent and still. In fact, as strange as it was, the creature appeared meek, as if cowed by Keisha’s reprimand.
‘You will show us what we need to see,’ stated Keisha. ‘Now!’
The Aberration obeyed. It didn’t know why, it only knew that it loved her and that it must keep her safe. It skulked away, through the dusty wine cellar, to a downward staircase, covered in cobwebs, where it waited for them.
‘You have hidden depths, Kirin girl,’ Nanon said with a wary smile. ‘Shall we follow?’
‘At a distance,’ she replied, wiping tears from her cheeks.
***
The Aberration led them through forgotten chambers and vast catacombs. They followed up, down, left, right. Whenever it stopped, so did they, and the distance between them remained. They were far beyond the moonlight, and relied on Nanon’s keen senses to orient themselves in the darkness. The creature shifted through a hundred different tones of black, and was strangely easy to locate from its outline. He didn’t know if this was deliberate, but it allowed Keisha to see in near total darkness. Even so, both of them stumbled multiple times in the forgotten bowels of Weir, until the Aberration stopped and directed a hiss ahead of him. Nanon judged they were beneath the knight marshal’s barracks, among a collection of vaults he could never have found without help. The creature had led them up from beneath. Three burning torches provided a muddy light, illuminating a corridor and a dozen or more vaults.