by JM Guillen
She skittered toward me like an insect, moving in strange jerks and twitches. In moments, she was on us, tearing at me with those strange claws.
“I wasn’t afraid enough, Tommy. That was my problem. But why should I have been? I, who stood on the front lines as yer kind arrived from across the sea. I, who fought the Thunderbird with nothing more than trickery and words.” He paused to evaluate my reaction. “Why should I have been afraid?”
“I wasn’t afraid either.” My voice sounded hollow. “I thought it posed little enough danger; I was so much quicker than it was.”
“There’s nothing more dangerous to our kind, Herald.” His grey eyes peered through me. “We are what they consume.”
I was there, in the cold street, with Ses’kia. The creature lunged toward us, as if it had somehow scented us on the wind. I tried to push the dancer behind me, even as she was trying to drag me away.
“You cannot, Illari. She is too strong.” She begged with tears in her eyes.
I would not listen. I was a fool.
I brought forth my spear, constructed of stories and songs. I called to my armor, woven of little more than secrets and whispered words. With the kind of bravery held by children and the mad, I strode forward to meet the woman.
(To meet the Wendigo)
“The Wendigo.” I was stunned, feeling the word hidden behind Coyote’s story. “Is that what they are? Wendigo?”
He shook his head. “Thought so m’self for a time. They fit the mold well enough. Wendigo is a ravenous spirit, a cannibal. At the time, I thought to myself that ‘ravenous’ was a perfect description for the half-starved creature.” He watched the dancing fire. “Hungry it was, but Wendigo it was not.” He drew a long breath. “Ses’kia’s folk called them ‘Shaediin.’”
Her strength was incredible. Everything I threw against her, she drank into herself. The shine of my spear darkened whenever I struck her. My armor rotted where she grasped at me with talons of darkness and cold.
The pain outshone anything I could have imagined.
She was the emptiness, the rot that was at the core of every man, woman, and child in the town.
“Illari!” Ses’kia’s voice pleaded. “You cannot defeat her. Not here and now!”
I was stubborn, however. Though my attacks fell to naught against her, I defended against her strikes. We sparred our way around the town, with her empty, hollow cries boring into the shadows of my mind.
She toyed with me like the Jaguar with her prey. Soon, her cries began driving into my mind, splinter after splinter of pain and madness. I could feel the nothingness that she was begin to take root. The very sound of her wail grasped inside me with cold fingers and tore at my heart.
The fire in my spear dimmed even more.
“Illari!” Ses’kia panicked.
So did I.
A strange, hollow, sucking noise tumbled from her gaping mouth, I fought to pull away from her. I could not, as if I were somehow held.
She drank, and horror washed over me.
I felt myself diminish. She drank from me stories of old, taking memory, Medicine, and secrets only I knew. She ripped them from my mind and heart, and they screamed like living things as she took them. They sank claws into me, clinging as she pulled, as if they could hold fast onto me and not be taken.
I cannot even give name to the things I forgot.
I staggered, awed by the strength of her pull, by the draw of the hollow emptiness within her. I felt fear. I felt fear the likes of which I had never known.
I had no doubt. This woman-thing could kill me. Could gorge on everything I was and be hungry for more.
“Illari!” Ses’kia hefted my spear in her hand though I hadn’t even known I had dropped it. She swung with all she had and struck the side of the ravenous woman’s head.
Her soundless screams clawed through my mind. They echoed through all of the worlds that were and ever could be.
She was hurt. Hurt, but nowhere near slain.
I knew the sound wasn’t real; it was something from the dreaming-lands, not quite true. Her mouth actually gasped, an inhale made all the more horrifying by its quiet wheeze.
We had a moment then. The creature reeled from the strike. She wasn’t dead, not by a long stride. I had no doubt now that, whatever I hurled at her, she would take into herself. She drank Medicine and could easily devour Ses’kia and me both.
A long moment passed where the Old Man fell silent. The fire’s orange light danced deep within his grey eyes. When he turned back to me, he only had two words to say, words woven with shame and fear that cut like the winter wind.
“We ran.”
11
We sat then, for long moments, before I spoke.
“It wasn’t foolish or cowardly.” I watched the fire. “Mine almost had me more than once. If I hadn’t found a friend, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
His grin turned rueful. “Yet sit yeh do, so I’ll wager yeh put yours down.”
I slowly nodded. I wasn’t trying to brag.
He chuckled. “What came after? Was it a cloud of biting flies? Mayhap scores a’ maggots pouring from the wound?”
“Spiders.” I gave him a questioning look. “Like water, they flowed from it.”
He chuckled again. “That’s the reality of the thing, right there, Tommy. Not Wendigo nor hungry ghost. The darkness that burns cold pours from them when dead but reforms later in another poor creature. It’s never whatever yeh thought i’ was.”
“A fetch.” I bit my lip in frustration. “That’s what I thought it was. Changeling-kin.”
He shook his head. “No. True night is what they are, night and cold beyond cold. You killed the shell, but the darkness remains. Shaediin is the best word I’ve found, for it’s not from any of the old tales.”
I nodded. “They’re new.”
He gave me a sideways grin. “You did better than I, O Herald. I ran the first time.”
I shrugged. “I had help.”
His lips curled back into a smile as he looked into the fire. “It’s more than that, Tommy. Yeh know it as well as I. Huntin’ is yer nature. It’s what yeh do.” He took a long draw of his cider. “That’s why I called yeh here. I needed someone else to see what I seen, someone who might be able to do more than I.”
I mistrusted his wording. “I doubt I could do more than you, Old Man.”
“My nature is secrets and glamour, Tommy. My strengths are illusions, smoke, and lies.” His laugh turned bitter. “These ’bominations drink me. Like syrup.” He paused. “You, on the other hand, could call the Great Hunt.”
Fear clenched my heart. I gazed into the fire.
“I could.” Uncertainty wound its way through my voice. “I don’t know what would happen, Coyote. The Hunter is greater than I. Once he comes, I cannot control the chase.” I turned to him. “The Hunt is beyond anyone’s will, even mine.”
“I don’ claim to know all the tricks of the Hunter, Tommy. But I know enough. Once yeh call ’im, I think his path will be clear.” Coyote rested back into his seat.
His certainty bothered me. There was more. Something I did not know. “Why?” I leaned forward, my aspen-eyes hard. “Why do you presume to know what the Hunter would do, Old Man?”
He let out a long sigh. “Because, Tommy, I’m not expectin’ him to hunt one of the wraiths. I wouldn’t cry your Name for somethin’ so small.” He grinned, fiercely.
“Tell me.”
A long pause. “I know where they’re comin’ from. I know what’s spawnin’ the things.”
My eyes must have been the size of dinner plates. “Something spawns them?”
“Everything comes from somewhere, Tommy. The story of me tracking the thing is long and long, but I can make it easy.” He sipped his cider. “It’s here, in these woods. It seethes with darkness and cold. It births the things in a cave, north a’ here. They pour from it like serpents. Dozens and dozens of the empty shadows. I seen it.”
I gaped a
t him, stunned.
I had defeated one of the hollow creatures but only just. Coyote had fled from one because it was too strong.
Whatever birthed them must be truly monstrous.
He nodded when he saw the look on my face. “Choice is simple, Tommy. Kill it or don’t. If’n yeh don’t, then it’ll just birth more of ’em.” He shrugged. “If’n yeh hunt it alone, I can’t say yeh’ll come back.”
“I scarcely killed the one shadow. Whatever births them must be…” My voice trailed off as I looked at him.
This was hopeless.
He sipped his cider. “But if’n yeh call the Hunter, I think he’ll seek it. If’n he don’t, it’ll still be fine. The beast is a hungry one.” He gave me a look. “It’ll seek to find the Hunter.”
I sat back, speechless.
He knew me. He had known before he even called.
The hunt was my nature. In the end, I had little choice.
“Yeh think that yer Untold Age is somethin’ that’s comin’.” He took another sip, and the firelight danced across his face. “I’m tellin’ yeh, it’s here.” He leaned toward me, his eyes like steel.
“It’s here, and these things are the spirits of the end.”
My hand trembling, I grasped my mug. I sipped at Coyote’s cider, my thoughts a storm.
Firelight flickered warmth across my face.
May we meet on far shores.
12
Time drifted, and we sat in silence. The firelight wove shadows across our faces, and I gazed into the dancing flames. Inwardly, I hoped to see some omen, some path that did not end in death.
I should have known better.
Autumn had its own special kind of horror, a sense of certain darkness that grew with every setting sun. The inevitability of darkness and night stalked in its wake.
If one were to listen on a moonless night, one might hear the truth, the whispering murmurs of death in the autumn sky. The sun still casted warmth, but slowly, the leaves dropped. Birds fled for warmer lands, and animals began to dig deep, seeking warmth and sleep. There, they dreamed until the world bloomed again.
In winter, death came. The world slept in quiet, peace. In the autumn, however, one can literally feel the horror of summer’s warmth, its life, slipping away.
Once, even the human-born knew the secret turnings of the world. Long before my kind began to wane, the mortal kith protected themselves from the oncoming darkness with story and song, spell and steel. Even today, lost and confused in their towers of glass, part of them remembered this fear. Out there, in the vast beyond, a cold darkness stalked them with a hunger that could never be sated.
It was no coincidence that harvest festivals often made for frightening affairs with straw men and stories of ghosts and woe. Hallow’s tales tended dark for a good reason. As the days shortened, death stalked the world. Its chill grasp touched everything in nature, and slowly, the world itself fell to winter’s grasp.
This was my nature as the Herald of the world’s dying.
Of course Coyote well knew all of this. He knew I had seen more than my share of dark mysteries. I always found the twisted things that lived in the cracks between places. Wherever I went strange things lurked at the edges, unseen by men. Often, these things fled me. Sometimes, they sought me. Either way, the ending was always the same.
It always came down to the hunt.
The hunt formed the crucible between life and death, a sacred holy passion. In that moment, when the hunt came upon me, there was no right nor any wrong. There was simply death, and I danced with it like a lover in joy and terror, exhilaration and horror.
Hunting was primal.
If my passions exceeded my control, I would inadvertently call the Hunter and a Great Hunt. This, of course, was just as Coyote wished. Coyote well knew my nature. He’d beckoned me here for a Great Hunt.
“So, later, when yeh’re playin’ the part of a young buck, all wild and free, rearin’ to hunt what ails the world…”
Not that the Old Man was alone in his knowledge. My own kind also well knew my nature. For all of my thousand-thousand awakenings, they bore my adventures with some chagrin or even a touch of disdain.
They somehow believed I sought out the darkened monstrosities, simply so I could hunt them.
Preposterous.
“I don’t know how much I can do, Tommy. You must stop poking at the things in the darkness.”
Without question I would seek the creature in the wood. To not do so, as it birthed living filth and darkness, went against everything I held dear, everything in me. Yes, I brought the autumn. My every step was a harbinger, a call that soon death’s voice would sound upon the world.
I brought the hunt. I brought death to the world and to those who stood against me.
I reflected, and memories of this new abomination washed over me.
I had no choice. Such unnatural creatures blighted the world.
They would have to be slain.
13
“I see it in yeh.” His gravelly voice sounded neither smug nor triumphant. “I see it as I knew I would. Yeh don’ have a choice, boy.” The latter words fell softly, almost sad.
I sipped at my cider, glaring at him.
“One might look at all this and claim an act of aggression. You’ve called my Name. You’ve beckoned me here to a place where darkness walks. You know full well what I shall do.”
“I’ve done yeh no harm.”
“Not directly, mayhap. But don’t insult me. I’m no fool. You’ve snared me well, and to pretend otherwise only adds insult to your crime.”
Unbelievably, he broke my gaze. “I can’t say yer wrong, Tommy.” He looked back toward me. “But yeh’ll do it? Yeh’ll hunt the beast?”
The weariness in his voice surprised me. At his dim spark of hope, my heart almost went to him, seeing him, for the briefest of moment, as a tired old man.
But no. I remembered his true nature.
“I can’t say what will happen, Old Man. I’ll seek this cave. I’ll see what I see.” I sipped my cider. “You must understand how difficult it is to trust, particularly when you coyed me into being here.”
“So yeh’d’ve simply come for the askin’?” His voice turned sharp.
I turned away from him, taking another sip. He knew that answer as certainly as I did.
He sighed. “I can’t say I don’t understand, Tommy.” His tone turned slightly rueful. “More so, because this fight doesn’t exactly cater to my strengths.” He gave me a canny gaze. “If’n I’d realized what yeh would do, one might think I might’a prepared a little something to lend yeh a touch o’ help.”
“The cider is quite enough, Coyote. I won’t have you hold any debt over me.”
“No debt is implied, Herald.” He steepled his fingers. “The way I ken it, one might say that I owe you.” He laughed. “Not that I would ever say as much.”
“Of course.”
“But, after all, I did call yer Name to the four winds.” He held up a single weathered finger. “And, one might say that I was a touch sly about when and where I called yeh, almost luring yeh into a situation.” A second finger rose.
“One might indeed say that.” I kept my voice cool.
He grinned at me. “Then, there’s the matter of how I came by yer Name to begin with.” He held up a third finger. “If’n yeh knew that, yeh might say I owe yeh thrice.” He shrugged. “If’n yeh were the kind to tally.”
“If I were.”
He leaned back into his chair. “It’s also true that I know the nature of this thing. And Tommy, it needs killin’. Would yeh be willin’ to let an old man pay his debts by offering a touch of glam? Mayhap a tool or three that could make a difference for yeh?”
I saw through his trick.
“You imply I said I would kill it. I never did.” If I accepted his tools, that could be seen as an agreement.
He grinned ruefully. “Canny one, yeh are.”
“I’ll scout it out. I agree
to that much.” I leaned forward. “If I decide that I’ll hunt it, perhaps I’ll take you up.” I sipped the last of my cider.
“If’n yeh decide to hunt it, I think yeh’ll need all the help yeh can get, Herald.”
I said nothing.
He was probably right.
“Jes’ call for it. I figger I owe yeh. Call for my boon when yeh need it.”
I gave him a grim smile. “By name, I suppose? Certainly. Just give me your Name and—”
“You know my name, Herald.”
“Not the same as having your Name, and you know it. Someone gave you my Name, after all.”
“Jes’ call. That will be enough.”
I let the silence hang between us for a few heartbeats.
“Just tell me where to go.”
14
I took my leave of him then. All that mattered, he had given me.
“At least let me get yeh a coat, boy. Yeh can’t wander back to town nekkid.”
“I’m not going back to town.” To be honest, clothing was the last thing on my mind. “I’ll head north now and see what there is to see. See if you’ve spoken straight.”
“Yeh know I have. Yeh can feel it.”
He was right, but I said nothing.
“Yeh’ll be lookin’ for a crick, north o’ here. They call it Emri’s Branch, even though tis naught more than a spring.” Coyote emptied his mug. “It’s about four hours north of town, near the highway. Yeh’ll want to follow it into the back hills. Its lair is there.”
I was certain I didn’t need my directions to be much more specific than that. I had felt the hollow creature while it was still well away from Molly’s. Chances were that whatever had spawned it would beckon to me as soon as I grew close.
Coyote met my gaze. “This knowledge is yers, without debt or lien. This ain’t how I pay yeh back for what I did.”
I studied him. “Fair enough.”