by Peter Newman
Vesper looks to her shoulder, eyes locking with the sword’s. She sees the usual rage there but something else too, a need. Seemingly of its own accord, her right hand lets go of silver feathers and hovers over the hilt.
It waits for her, glaring, silently imploring to be used. Every instinct warns against making contact. Her father used the sword once and it did something to him. Something terrible. What would it do to her? Her hand begins to shake.
Gutterface looms before her, a silent giant.
She grabs the hilt.
Takes a breath.
And draws the sword.
Free, the sword roars defiance. Vesper tries to sing with it, to give direction but is unprepared for the force of its anger. Her voice is small, untrained, easily drowned out. Sound explodes in all directions, stunning, sparking briefly in the air.
Samael rocks where he lays, as if moved by an invisible hand. Scout cowers away, whining, while the gaggle of lesser infernals cry out, running away as their shells begin to smoke.
For a moment, Gutterface pauses, fundamentally shocked by the waves of rage rippling outward. Instinctively, it retreats deeper into its shell, pulling essence back. But it is only a reflex and one quickly mastered. For alone, the Malice cannot penetrate its defences. Alone its song is not enough to destroy.
Shock marks Vesper’s face, her mouth remains open but makes no noise. Her first encounter with the sword leaving eyes glazed, vacant. The sword continues to vibrate, angry, in her hand.
Meanwhile, Gutterface flows back into its extremities, refilling its vast shell. In total it has only been inactive for a few seconds. Long enough for Duet to get up and move round, leaping at Gutterface feet first.
Together, her boots connect with its kneecap, slapping loose skin against wet meat, forcing the hinge of bone too far the wrong way. There is a dulled crack and Gutterface falls sideways.
Samuel and Scout rise together, though the Dogspawn seems shaken, its head lolling, drunk. Both seem braced against an alien wind.
Vesper comes to her senses. She sheathes the sword, ignoring the reprisal in its eye, and helps Jem to stand. ‘Come on!’ she urges, half lifting, half dragging him away.
Duet pulls her blade free from Gutterface’s knee and jumps back as the broken limb stabs at her. ‘We should finish it now!’
‘No,’ replies Samael. ‘More are coming.’
‘Damn!’ She kicks the stunned infernal once anyway, for good measure, and then runs after the others.
For miles around, the Malice is felt. In the gutters of New Horizon, lesser infernals screech in fear, the Demagogue wobbles uncertainly in its bowl and, on the city’s outskirts, hunters freeze and turn towards the sound. Most find themselves going in the opposite direction.
Not far away, the mob known as Gutterface’s children run until they meet up with reinforcements, doubling numbers. Even so, they continue to wail, intent on fleeing all the way to New Horizon. It is only when the new arrivals direct puzzled looks to the old ones that Gutterface’s children realise the Malice has been silent for some time now. There is an awkward pause, then screams trail off. They exchange looks, guilty, before rushing back to see what has become of their master.
It is already standing when they arrive, though one leg juts out awkwardly, wobbling under the weight.
Before they can shout or climb over Gutterface’s craggy body, it raises an arm, pointing after their prey.
If they can remember their recent fear, it does not show, and, with a delighted whoop, they scurry into the night to hunt.
Samael carries Jem in his arms. He does not like the way the man shakes, or the pale tinge his essence has taken. Rest is needed and good food, taken in small quantities. Instead, there is travel and further exposure to the elements.
Exertions take their toll on Duet as well. She lags behind the others, labouring and angry at herself for not being more. Muttered words make a lash to drive her on.
Vesper catches the odd phrase and bites her lip. On her back, the sword’s hum is constant. No special sensitivity is needed to know why.
Gutterface is coming. Picking up the chase again. Its children screech and laugh and shout, the sounds sailing easily across open ground. A horde of infernals, too many to fight.
They press on, aware that their pursuers are gaining, the noises behind growing in excitement.
The night presses in around them, playing tricks on human eyes. Rocks ambush toes, tripping, holes in the ground catch unwary feet. Vesper holds Duet’s hand, the two wobbling often but staying upright. The kid scampers alongside, mocking them with his grace.
A new smell cuts through the dark, grim, rotten, stirring the stomach.
‘What is that?’ asks Vesper, one arm across her face.
Samael’s voice is quiet, hard to hear against the mob behind them. ‘We are on the outskirts of the Fallen Palace.’
Hard earth becomes moist, squelching underfoot. Quickly, each step sinks down, forcing boots to be pulled free from the sucking, lusty swamp.
Scout begins to growl and immediately Samael stops.
Vesper bumps into his armoured back. ‘What is it?’
‘Put on your light, see for yourself.’
Duet obliges, the beam from her visor illuminating grey mud and finger thick shoots. There are ripples on the surface where shy creatures were but moments ago, and reflected glints, winking where the beam meets a pair of eyes peeking over the surface of the water. As the light travels, it finds more eyes, tucked low within the swamp. Each pair belongs to a half-breed.
As one, the half-breeds rise from their positions, making a fleshy fence that bars the way ahead. The half-breeds are a motley collection, a mix of mutations, of misplaced organs and duplicate limbs. Despite this, three things unite them: none are tall, all have a bright mark on their person, identifying the piece that will be given to their master when they die, and all of them are old by the standards of the Fallen Palace.
By contrast, the single Usurperkin that moves in behind them is huge, a moving tower of rippling muscle. On its shoulders sits the Backwards Child. A girl’s body, perfectly preserved save for the neck which twists round too far, always facing the wrong way. A wave of hair cascades down her front, spilling over bent knees to cover the Usurperkin’s face.
In truth, the Usurperkin is but an extension of the Backwards Child’s shell, the two bodies fused together to make a space big enough to contain the infernal’s essence but most forget, treating the child’s body as the one in charge.
Vesper looks at the forces arrayed in front of her, doesn’t need to look at the forces hot on her heels. She looks at the sword. An eye looks back.
The sword wants to be used. Perhaps together, they would have a chance.
For a moment, she hesitates. What if she tries to use the sword’s power and fails to control it. But what cost is there in doing nothing?
She closes her eyes, commits.
Her hand reaches up to her shoulder.
Silvered wings stretch in anticipation.
And Samael’s voice cuts in, surprisingly close: ‘Hold.’
Vesper blinks, her fingertips tingling less than an inch from the hilt. ‘What?’
‘I will share myself with the Backwards Child. If it is not part of the Demagogue’s alliance, it will wish to know what I know.’
‘And if it is one of the Demagogue’s creatures?’
Samael offers Jem’s body, Vesper and Duet taking him between them. ‘Then you should use the Malice.’
The first of Gutterface’s children arrive. The small infernals are slowed considerably by the fetid terrain, sinking to their chests, but their enthusiasm powers them on, only flagging when they realise Gutterface is still far behind them.
On impulse, Samael takes out his sword and salutes Vesper.
She forces herself to smile, despite the fear. ‘Good luck.’
He nods, moving purposefully towards the Backwards Child and its followers. He sheathes his sword an
d pulls off his helmet, sliding his long hair carefully through it.
The nearest half-breeds step aside for him and he walks around the Backwards Child until he stands behind it. The girl’s body leans back, head bending towards his, eyes intent.
He rests his hands on the Usurperkin’s shoulder blades and stands on tiptoes.
One leaning on the other, awkward, their heads come close. The Backwards Child opens the girl’s mouth and licks at Samael’s eye.
Essences touch and the physical world drops away.
There is always danger when essences meet, the chance that one will overwhelm the other or that ideas will cross over like infections, or worse, that identities will be altered, becoming watered down versions of each other. Samael has touched the Man-shape’s essence often but this is different. The Man-shape is the epitome of control, able to hold back its true power, to touch delicately. The Backwards Child is alien, poorly understood even by its fellow infernals. Samael feels the strangeness like a vortex, pulling at his weak sense of self.
He tries to focus.
‘I have something to show you—’
He is cut off. The intention to display the events that took place in New Horizon is lost. He intends to show it the alliance between the Demagogue and Gutterface, to show how Hangnail was betrayed, but all of that, all of him, is swept up in other currents.
His essence is like a fragile bubble, held in the Backward Child’s grasp. It would be a simple matter to crush it. Instead, the Backwards Child begins to peel.
Samael is made to remember, to walk back through his life.
He stands with the Backwards Child.
He retreats, rejoining Vesper and Duet and taking Jem from them.
Together they chase Gutterface and it’s children north but they are not fast enough to catch them.
They encounter a body, on the floor, one leg broken. The shell of an infernal. Duet kicks it and it gets up again, then they chase it towards New Horizon.
From there he goes north, until he parts company with Vesper and Duet and returns to New Horizon, repairing a broken bridge with two swings of his sword and rushing back to install Jem as a piece of living artwork. He leaps into the Demagogue’s court in time to see Hangnail throwing off an army of infernals and re-skin a demon cat.
Briefly, a part of him stirs, remembering that this is what he wanted the Backwards Child to see. Before he can form a question, he is moved again, backwards, always backwards.
And on the memories go, passing faster and faster.
Years of watching the Breach.
His creator, rising from the Usurper’s deathgrip. Their life together, viewed in reverse, until he experiences his own birth. The moment when his creator’s essence mixed with his own, blending.
But the Backwards Child is not done. From the tangled mess of Samael’s essence, it finds two threads. One a simple fisherman, mortal, also called Samael. With hopes and dreams, regrets and secrets. The other, his creator, a tangle all its own.
For a moment, he remembers his old life in shocking clarity and then he is moving again, dragged into the infernal part of his heritage, submerged in memories not his own.
The present slips away, ever more distant. He knows that within him lies a fragment of his creator and within that fragment are fragments of other beings, last remnants of the Usurper and the Uncivil. He begins to panic, not wanting to go any further. Marshalling his will, Samael begs for release.
But the Backwards Child is not done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Aged half-breeds face off with Gutterface’s children, neither side willing to act until their masters have spoken. Between them, trapped, knee deep in swamp, stand Vesper, Duet and Jem, who wakes up only to wish he hadn’t.
They watch the Backwards Child and Samael, leaning together, motionless, and hope for the best. Next to them, Scout throws back his head and howls, making the kid leap straight up into the air and prompting a fresh chorus of laughter from Gutterface’s brood.
While Scout continues to howl, the sword continues to hum, setting all of the infernals on edge. The two sides react in different ways. Those that follow the Backwards Child brace themselves, becoming rigid. By contrast, Gutterface’s children become agitated. They cannot take their frustrations out on their prey and so they begin jostling each other. Annoyed noises accompany increasingly violent shoves until one unfortunate is thrust towards Duet. A human infant with huge ears and a face full of teeth. It splashes forward, trying to get its balance, coming to a stop only a few feet from the Harmonised.
She looks down.
It looks up.
It smiles, or perhaps it bares its teeth. The expression is hard to judge.
Duet shrugs off Jem, and her sword arcs out as the infernal throws itself backwards, the thick gravy of the swamp hampering its movement.
An ear spins through the air and lands on the surface of the swamp with a wet plop. As one, Gutterface’s children watch the ear float for a moment, trembling, before the swamp swallows it. As one, they turn their beady eyes on Duet.
The air thickens and small bodies tense, ready to spring.
Duet starts towards them but Vesper puts a hand on her arm, gentle. ‘Hold on.’
She holds, and the infernals do too, drawn by something else. Their collective attention goes over Duet’s shoulder, past the waiting half-breeds to the two communing figures. Currents of essence change, barely felt by human or goat and Samael falls away from the Backwards Child like a dead weight.
Scout’s howl becomes a whine and he charges over to his fallen master.
The Backwards Child ignores the Dogspawn, moving forward with sudden speed, the little girl bouncing on green shoulders.
Vesper looks at Jem. ‘Can you stand?’
‘I think so.’
She steps away from him and prepares to draw the sword.
The excitement is too much for Gutterface’s children. They attack, arms waving about their heads, shrieking madly.
Duet prepares to meet them, the light from her visor intensifying. Vesper turns to face the Backwards Child. Jem produces a knife and tries to control his shaking body.
The Backwards Child moves around the group of humans and opens her mouths.
Invisible essence flows in the darkness.
And Gutterface’s children slow down, their shouts drawing out, deepening, the movement of their arms less violent, more like shrubs swaying in a light breeze.
They come to a complete stop, their cries dying out.
There is a moment of utter stillness.
Then arms begin to wave again, slow, becoming faster. Legs backpedal, carrying bodies away from the fight, gaining speed as they move towards the shallows of the swamp.
It is not long before the night swallows them. Cries of excitement sound in reverse, receding.
The Backwards Child closes its mouths.
Without a word, its half-breed followers create a gap in their ranks, allowing Vesper, Duet and Jem to pass. The kid follows, hopping across slime-coated rocks.
It takes all three of them to get Samael on his feet again.
‘Are you …? How are you?’ asks Vesper.
Samael shakes his head.
Vesper pauses, takes his hand. ‘Thank you.’ She looks over her shoulder to the Backwards Child. ‘And, thank you. I won’t forget.’
The Backwards Child says nothing.
Not sure if it can understand her, Vesper bows, aware of the sword shifting on her back, uncomfortable. She turns and hurries after the others, going deeper into the swamp.
Gutterface reaches the edge of the swamp, limping slowly, doggedly. Shapes appear from the gloom, accelerating towards it, scampering backwards. Its children.
They show no sign of slowing down and Gutterface is forced to scoop up the small infernals as they race by, gathering clumps of them with every sweep of its arms.
Its essence reaches out smartly, slapping them back to their senses.
It tas
tes the work of the Backwards Child and is displeased.
Shaken by their ordeal, the smaller infernals crawl into familiar nooks and hollows in Gutterface’s frame, snuggling close.
Catching them all takes time but the infernal works tirelessly until all of its spawn are united and whole again. Then it interrogates them, drawing essences together within its shell, a cacophony of souls.
‘What happened?’
They respond at once, answers jumping over one another. ‘We chased the Malice. Yes! We caught it. Caught it, we did. I was the fastest! No, I was! To the hungry grounds, with the sucking sounds, there we found the Malice. Yes, there! I found it there first! And the Backwards Child was there. Waiting. Like it knew we would come. It wants the Malice, too. There was a fight.’
‘Who fought?’
‘It wasn’t our fault! Not my fault! Nor mine. Nor mine. Nor mine. We knew to wait for you, but wanted to taste them so badly. To play. Just a little. Nothing broken not for good. Soften them up for you. Make you happy.’
‘Who fought you? The Malice?’
‘No fighting. Just a little play, then the Backwards Child spoilt it all. Breathed into our innards, filled them with wrongness. Made us run. Then you found us. You found me first!’
Gutterface withdraws from contact. It can sense the Backwards Child now, a complicating factor, and pauses to consider its options. Perhaps the Backwards Child could be persuaded, perhaps it could be defeated. Either way, the result would be far from certain. Better to withdraw, restore itself and think.
But it must think fast. The Malice is here, the chance for a new dominion with it. Gutterface wants to win, to spread its superior love and bask in its reflected warmth. And if that is not possible then it must at least be on the right side when the fighting is done.
The Fallen Palace looms ahead, a jagged silhouette of slanting structures and teetering towers. Behind it, distant, strange lights flicker on the horizon as if, just out of sight, the world is burning.
This far south, reality begins to bend towards the alien. Air remains air, just less so than it was. Other things are mixed in, unclassified, most too small to detect. Human lungs work a little harder to get what they need, and a primal urge to leave sparks deep in the heart.