The Promise of the Child

by Tom Toner

  Something, most likely the leading Threen’s corpse, crunched in the animal’s jaws. Blood splattered Corphuso’s feet with a sickening spurt as some organ inside its body burst, and then the rope went slack. He heard the thing move away, still eating, the smell of blood and shit and bile strong in his nostrils.

  The sickly Threen had attracted the predator, their interpreter said in the darkness as one of the guides spoke, the corrupted stench of whatever disease had ailed it likely fragrant in the jungle air for miles around. They would be safe now in this territory with the hunter so recently sated, and could move on. Voss said she wasn’t sure if she could believe what the Vulgar was saying to her, but in the blackness of the forest path they recounted and retied the ropes, fastening the Shell’s heavy chest back onto to its pallet and resuming the long slog up into the mountains. The rope in Corphuso’s hands was still wet but the warmth had leached out of it, and over the course of several silent hours he felt the clotted blood drying, stiffening the weave. His hands, he had no doubt, would be almost totally brown with the creature’s blood.

  By the evening of the fourth day he could hear a distant rumbling. At first it had presented itself as nothing but a nagging vibration through the soles of his feet, but when they stopped he thought he could make out sound, too. They were many miles from the nearest front, one of four chaotic Maginot Lines that had sprung up during the course of the small conflict, and the majority of artillery-based conflict was taking place in the moon’s troposphere between the Threens’ allies, the Zelioceti, and rival Lacaille fleets. It dawned on Corphuso as they approached the source of the sound that it couldn’t possibly be the clamour of fighting but rather some natural phenomenon—a landslide, perhaps, though more likely a waterfall. He thought back to the maps he had seen before leaving the Voidship, remembering the concentric red lines of altitude as the foothills rose into the mountains, but could recall no sign of a waterfall on their proposed route. Either the maps had ignored large features, which struck him as unlikely since he had seen individual holy trees marked, or the Threen they travelled with were taking them an alternate way.

  When the sound had become a roar, he knew the guides had taken another path. The Vulgar behind were growing anxious, registering at last the dampness in the air, possibly on the very lip of the thundering cascade. Corphuso could feel a mist of spray entering his nostrils as he breathed, everything else drowned out now by the falls. The rope in his hands suddenly became slack.

  “What—” Voss began, the fury evident in her voice.

  A presence stepped forwards, jostling Corphuso. The Amaranthine’s scream as she was shoved from the edge of the falls was like nothing he’d ever heard, a shriek of rage and fear that brought him out in a tingling chill. Corphuso realised through nothing but sensation that he was standing alone, cut from the rest of the rope line.

  A sudden flare of light forced his eyes shut. Through narrowed slits he looking down with difficulty to see the rope around his wrist had indeed been cut. The Amaranthine’s screams had faded into the bellowing waterfall, visible at last. The forest loomed over him, the light reflecting from dozens of nocturnal pupils. Around him the Threen stood, their goggled eyes gleaming blackly.

  “Lacaille say you, and only you,” burbled the closest Threen in Unified. So they could speak it all along. He glanced behind him, knowing before he did so that the rest of his party would be gone. The huge metal case still sat on its pallet, mud caking the sides where it had been pulled, sled-like, through days’ worth of undergrowth.

  “What Lacaille?” he asked, wrapping his arms around himself and glancing between the tall, strange creatures.

  “We take you to him now,” the Threen said, its long, glistening tongue snaking from its mouth as it smiled. It hoisted the simple lantern and turned a knob, extinguishing the light.

  Bloodfruit

  They rounded the caves, aiming for a mottled swathe of darker green where the sea became deeper. Beneath them the sandbanks sank away into gloom, the depths hard to judge. The water was much cooler out here, and when Lycaste looked over the side of the boat he couldn’t see any fish at all.

  Drimys and Impatiens sat between a stack of baskets filled with the stinking sap of Lycaste’s overripe bloodfruits. Drimys lifted a lid and peered inside. Lycaste thought he was going to say something but the man simply nodded, replacing the lid and looking off out to sea. None of them was feeling particularly talkative. Spots of crimson from the basket dappled the floor of the boat, their colour softening as they faded and mixed with salt water that had slopped over the edge.

  “Leave it alone,” Impatiens said softly, not looking at Drimys. He turned his frowning gaze out to sea, deep-set eyes lost in strong shadow. The two had argued that morning over preparations, Impatiens accusing his friend of not making enough netting for the trip. Now they were barely on speaking terms.

  Lycaste carefully stretched a leg over the baking rim of the boat, lost in daydreams. A hot wind buffeted his face and he closed his eyes, secretly delighted that for once he and not Drimys was Impatiens’s favourite. He relaxed into memory, letting the gentle swells that rocked the boat take him there. The crazed pink glow of the sun behind his lids was the firelight from last night; the breeze on his stubble the brush of a soft, uncertain mouth.

  “Lycaste, wake up. We ought to go over it again. Drimys, are you listening?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Drimys sighed, bundling the nets and spitting overboard.

  “You find something amusing, Lycaste?” Impatiens asked, ignoring Drimys. Lycaste sat up and shook his head, composing himself. Impatiens clapped his hands together briskly. “You both know your jobs. Once we sight it, I get within range. Drimys has the nets ready, Lycaste is at the harpoon.”

  Lycaste looked over at the weapon, a crude assembly of metal tubes welded together and bolted to the side of the boat on a long armature. Iron chains pooled on the floor, connected to a pile of barbed projectiles, their heavy edges still rough from the lathe.

  “Lycaste aims for the head, or maybe the fin, if it comes close.” Impatiens made a stabbing motion with his finger to illustrate for Lycaste’s benefit. “If you can’t take the shot you call to me and I do it.”

  Lycaste nodded, running his thumb along the edge of a barb. He knew Impatiens thought him perfectly incapable of aiming and shooting at things, but he would show him.

  “Then Drimys casts the net and we reel it in. Simple. Because he hasn’t made enough netting there’s no second try, so we have to get it right first time.”

  Drimys squeezed the ropes in his fist. Impatiens stared impassively at him, waiting for an outburst. When none came, he pointed to the baskets and nodded. “Very well—drop the bait.” He lifted a spear from the stack, pounded the twisted tip weightily on the floor of the boat and handed it to Lycaste. “Here.”

  Lycaste took it and examined the deck where Impatiens had struck it, but there was no mark. He positioned the spear and slid it into the contraption, wincing at the squeal of metal. Drimys stood and tipped one of the baskets, releasing the clotting bloodfruit into the sea. It bubbled and stained the water dark, clouding it up to a few yards down. They all looked over the side. When it had begun to dissipate, Impatiens steered them further out, turning so that the blood sap would settle in a wide ring. Drimys repeated the process, tipping another of the heavy baskets clumsily over the edge and almost losing it. He sat back, breathing hard. They both looked at Impatiens, who nodded, relaxing a little into his corner of the boat but keeping his eyes on the water.

  Lycaste wiped some of the salt from his eyes, rearranging his leg and rolling his calf so that it touched as little of the scorching bow as possible. The other two men talked somewhere in the distance, his reverie already dimming their voices. He looked up at the flawless vault of gassy blue above and shut his eyes, relishing the slow sting of salt water in his lashes. It might be some time before they saw anything, if anything came at all, and he was feeling peculiarly calm. Cal
mer than he would ever have imagined he could be in such circumstances. He heard their low voices again, at the stern, perhaps looking back to shore. The baking wind toyed with his salt-stiff hair and his silent smile broadened.

  He’d wanted to say so much to her, but some sense of occasion and romance had held his tongue. You weren’t supposed to talk—he’d seen that in plays and books when he was a child and had never forgotten the rule. Pentas had stretched her neck and kissed him for the first time, so delicately and tentatively that their lips only brushed, connecting for a few brief seconds. It had reminded him of a wild animal eating out of someone’s hand, trembling, unsure.

  A tickle spread slowly across the sole of Lycaste’s foot. He dismissed it dreamily, feeling it build until something firm and wet scraped the edge of his toe. Then he remembered—his foot was dangling over the side of the boat.

  He sat up, jerking his leg away. The other two stopped talking and stared at him. Lycaste ignored them and slowly poked his head over the bow.

  At first he couldn’t work out what he was looking at; it was as if the pale, mottled sandbank below them was moving. Its alabaster surface was tinged with colour, like a rough pearl. For a few seconds more there was no form, then with a nacreous glimmer it writhed far beneath the boat. He fell away from the side in revulsion, staring at the deck. Impatiens and Drimys rolled to the stern, tipping the boat a little, but they could see nothing. The water was too deep even for the gauzy shafts of sunlight that sank beneath the surface.

  Lycaste’s stomach clenched, suddenly feeling something like vertigo at the immensity of the abyss below them. He’d never seen one so clearly before.

  “Is it beneath us?” asked Impatiens, sweeping the hair out of his eyes as he searched the depths.

  “It was. I don’t know where it is now. The water’s so deep.”

  “You saw it?” Drimys looked up at him.

  Lycaste nodded, replaying in his mind that briefest of glimpses, when the thing had finally taken shape.

  Impatiens sat back, thinking. “Drimys,” he said, touching the nervous-looking man’s leg, “get your net ready. I’ll take us in towards the shore. Lycaste, the harpoon.”

  Drimys stood up, his crimson skin—the reddest of all of them—oiled with gleaming sweat. He heaved a pile of netting onto his shoulder. Lycaste crawled to a crouch behind the harpoon and slid a barb into its second tube, a whining scrape of metal followed by the clunk of a latch closing over the projectile. He swung it with a rusty screech until it pointed out to sea.

  The cove was still, tiny peaked waves glittering. They looked at each other, Impatiens risking a sly smile as he reached for the edge of the boat to steer it inland.

  Drimys whispered something Lycaste didn’t hear, muscles in his legs visibly tensing. They both looked at him curiously. Then they felt it: a sudden swell beneath the hull.

  With a roaring slap the craft lifted from the water, spinning like a thrown saucer. Lycaste grabbed the harpoon as both Drimys and the baskets were hurled from the vessel. The pile of harpoon projectiles bounced and flew, one of them striking Lycaste across the shoulder, the rest tumbling past him, ringing as they slammed into things. His head struck Impatiens’s, who had crumpled in one corner, holding viciously on to the side as the boat still twirled, raising white crests of surf over the bow. Lycaste felt nauseous as he was pelted with salty water, the spinning only beginning to slow, the tiny boat jerking this way and that with their applied weight. He looked briefly over at the hull where he guessed they had been hit and saw a wide, flattened section where the material had lost its curve. Then they heard Drimys’s shouts. He was somewhere in the water. With an effort, they both crawled to the side, clinging to the bow of the boat as it still eddied confusedly under the impact, its mechanism now asymmetrical from the dent and unable to function properly.

  He was not far away, but they had to keep turning their heads to keep him in sight as the craft swung. When Drimys saw them, he struck out with a powerful stroke, shouting as he swam. Lycaste couldn’t hear what he was saying—the water that parted around his mouth was making him splutter and cough.

  As the man neared the boat, a ghostly, faded tint appeared in the sea behind him. Impatiens moaned beside Lycaste, gripping the painted edge so tightly that his knuckles yellowed. At first Lycaste could only see the colour of the thing as it ascended, a paler shade of turquoise pursuing a small, struggling drop of red. Drimys stopped shouting and suddenly went still, stunned, treading water. He looked wordlessly down into the glittering sea, trying to see what was coming for him. Lycaste lunged forwards, stretching to reach him, but Drimys was still just out of reach and the boat turned lazily away. He hammered his fist on the side, but the tilt did nothing; they would have to press out the bulge in the hull.

  Then they all saw it, the ugly white face gaining clarity as it followed them in the murk. Its huge, deep-set eyes were curious, the mouth studded with splintered teeth. Lycaste recoiled as he watched it; the face looked almost benignly human under the distorted light, an air of bewildered humour dancing in those warped eyes as it closed the distance, as if all it wanted to do was play.

  Drimys wailed, suddenly realising how sickeningly close it was to his outstretched feet, and launched himself sideways against the length of the boat, a hand reaching for the edge. Impatiens cried out hoarsely and grabbed Drimys’s arm just as the huge face, now devoid of charm, broke the surface in a storm of spray.

  Lycaste squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears, the screams still finding their way in. The boat lurched and he was thrown back against the inside of the hull, rolling over the blister and popping it flat. They accelerated away, stored-up force smashing a fan of water into the air. He gasped and opened his eyes to see the sea thrumming past as the craft spiralled. Impatiens had hold of something and was fighting not to let go, his elbow leaning on the stern, inadvertently steering the boat. Lycaste crawled and grabbed at the other hand that had appeared over the side, and together they dragged what little was left of Drimys aboard.

  He spared the man only a glance, grabbing for the harpoon. It was still bolted to the side, and Lycaste swivelled it around to face the bow, where the huge creature clattered against the paintwork somewhere beneath the edge, pushing the boat through the water. The craft’s design prevented it from capsizing, he knew, but they could still be knocked out of it. The harpoon wouldn’t point low enough to be of any use, and he had to crouch again to stay upright on the tilted deck. Twin waves of bright foam appeared on either side of the bow as the small boat was pushed ever faster, and Lycaste glanced over his shoulder for the shore. It was closer than he expected, the cove and orchards hazily visible over the spray. He let go of the harpoon, slamming the armature awkwardly against the side in frustration, and fell forward to Drimys. The man’s blood had clotted as soon as he hit the floor of the boat, but Lycaste was astounded at how little was left of him. Drimys was literally half-missing, his ragged torso crimped and severed from a bite that ran the length of his body. He was even missing one ear. Impatiens held Drimys’s head, the eyes closed, peaceful, his chest rising and falling gently. A crimson saline soup pooled where the injured man lay, slapping between their knees as the boat was nudged roughly towards the shore. Lycaste stumbled numbly and fell in the bloody water. They could feel the vast head rasping along the underside of the boat, attempting to tip it. Occasionally it slammed upwards, spattering their bodies with the rusty brine. It was the hunger he could feel in those movements that scared him the most, the intent that resonated in each frustrated lurch.

  The bulge in the hull had popped back out so he kicked at it twice, flattening it with a slam. The boat tipped and parted the crimson blot surrounding them, flying into cleaner sea. Drimys’s mouth opened and he gave a tattered groan. Impatiens crouched over him, smoothing the man’s soaked hair over his forehead.

  Lycaste wanted to look back, fearing most that the creature would suddenly loom beneath them, just beneath the surface. Instead
he focused his attention on the sunlit caves and twin strips of emerald and brown: home.

  The tiny craft picked up even more speed, skimming its air pocket in a white trench of roaring surf. Every bounce and judder shook Drimys more than the others, his weight being so much less. With each spray of surf, Lycaste was convinced they would be overtaken; he closed his eyes and leaned back, summoning all his weight in a bid to go faster. When he opened them again, Impatiens was shouting ferociously, and he saw the beach rushing towards them. With a crack of hurled pebbles, the boat buried itself, shovelling a sloppy pile of sand towards them. Lycaste’s face slammed into the brown pile, something crunching in his nose as they all careered into each other.

  Without waiting to look behind him, he leapt from the boat, tumbling onto the stones under the weight of his dizziness. He tasted fresh, thick blood swamping his face and throat, waking him up. He scrambled to his feet, trembling, too afraid to turn, and ran up the beach. It was only after he remembered Drimys a few seconds later that he dared look back.

  The boat was alone, wedged bodily into the freshly dug sand. The calm sea beyond appeared to be empty, bright green and calm again. Lycaste ran towards the boat, shuddering, wiping his face roughly with the sandy back of his forearm. It stung enormously, snapping him conscious again, and when he brought the arm away it was swabbed with clotted scarlet sand. He mounted the small hill of displaced pebbles and saw Impatiens giddily look up at him. Drimys was panting, eyes still tight shut, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

  Without a word, Impatiens heaved the tattered man over his shoulder and stood up, swaying to the point where Lycaste was convinced he would fall. But he regained his balance and climbed from the hull with Drimys dangling from his back like some heavy, ragged clothing. Lycaste looked up the beach to his house, his mind bolting forward, trying to think of what to do. He heard the scrape and clatter of pebbles from the direction of the caves and saw people sprinting down the beach towards them.