by Conner, Jack
“The box shields it?” Sheridan said.
“You’re safe,” the Collossum said. “Go now. These Magons will carry the relic to the dirigible ...”
Avery’s attention was diverted when two other Magons, taking Layanna by the arms, steered her toward the dais on which the monarch sat, and the monarch, to Avery’s surprise, rose to his or her feet and descended the dais as the Collossum drew near, as if unwilling to sit above its god.
The Collossum, taking little notice of the Magon ruler, said one last thing to Sheridan, who nodded, turned and strode from the chamber. As she did, she passed by Avery, and her eyes went to him. They were haunted.
Then she was gone.
The Collossum stopped before the stairs that led up to the dais and turned to receive Layanna and the others as they approached. Magons with venom-whips stood nearby, and Avery understood why they had not needed the help of the pirates to keep Layanna subdued; they had both whips and a Collossum.
“Davic,” Layanna said, inclining her head in a gesture of acknowledgement—no more—to the handsome Collossum. “It’s you, isn’t it? I’ve never seen you in this form before, but I can feel you.”
Davic, if that was his name, nodded back. “Layanna. I’ve wanted to see you again for some time.” He regarded her gravely, but with some other feeling Avery could not recognize—love? hate? It was some powerful emotion, of that Avery was certain, and barely contained. “You look strange in this form.”
She said something to him in some tongue Avery did not recognize, and Davic’s face twisted in anger. With surprising speed, he backhanded her across the face, and she fell in a heap. Avery stooped to help her up, but Magons pulled him back.
Layanna wiped blood from her lip and rose back to her feet. Meeting Avery’s eyes and perhaps reading his confusion, she said, quietly, “Davic and I were married.”
“Married?”
“Well, that is its equivalent. Remember, I told you I’d once had a R’loth husband.”
“But ... I thought ... all of your family was purged ...”
“They were exterminated after she betrayed her kind,” Davic said. “All our children died. Killed because of you, Layanna.” His face reddened.
“You had R’loth children?” Avery couldn’t help but ask. She had told him she had once before, he vaguely remembered, but somehow he’d allowed himself to forget.
Davic’s gaze swung to him. “Keep your mouth shut or I will remove your jaw.”
Avery kept silent.
“What do you want of me, Davic?” Layanna said. “You didn’t change your form to come to my aid.”
“I was offered the choice of serving the Great Elders and proving my loyalty by leading the new navy based here—or following the fate of our offspring. I chose the former. And that path has led me here, to you, even as dozens of specially bred and designed starfish move toward the coast to level the broken remains of our enemies.”
“Dozens?” Janx said, saying what Avery had been forbidden to.
“The world you know will be laid waste,” Davic said, not addressing Janx, necessarily, but the gathering as a whole.
“Fuck,” said Hildra.
Layanna stood straighter. “What do you mean to do with me?”
Davic stared at her for a long, hard moment, then said, “Eat you, of course.”
Wind fluttered in from outside, bringing with it the smell of rain.
“Is that why you brought me here?” Layanna said. “Instead of letting the pirates kill me? Revenge for our children? I am sorry. You know that, surely. I’ve mourned for them every day since I made my decision to join the Black Sect.”
“My feelings can hold no sway in the greater scheme,” Davic said. “The Elders want you dead. Once it was learned that you were in the hands of loyal followers, it was decided that I have the honor of dispatching you. More than that, though, I’m supposed to search your mind.”
“For what purpose?”
“You designed the machine that undid Octung’s weapons. No one knows how you did it, not even those who worked on reversing its functions, and it’s believed that if that machine can be built again, reversed and activated, or simply built in reverse and activated, then perhaps the weapons we gifted to Octung will be operational again. It would make things easier. At any rate, I’m to find that information if I can. If not, I’m simply meant to—”
With shocking swiftness, Layanna’s other-self exploded outward. Strange colors danced on the walls as her alien form shot not toward Davic but the Magons bearing the whips. Recovering from their surprise, they lashed her viciously, but she managed to scoop up two of them and devour them before they drove her back toward Davic, who had brought forth his own other-self. Amber and violet, a huge swollen sac of gorgeous organelles and nightmarish pseudopods alive with unearthly light, he attacked Layanna from the rear, slamming his limbs down on her and thrusting his tendrils through her sac wall. He was quite a bit larger and more powerful-looking than she was.
Oddly, she did not fight him, allowing his sac to envelop hers and begin eating into it. Her sac shrank ... shrank ...
As soon as it had begun, he drew away, leaving her withered but alive, and at once both of their other-selves withdrew into their human bodies with a double slurp. The two collapsed to the floor. Layanna, sweaty and spent, panted, recovering, while Davic picked himself up and reeled back toward the stairs, looking ill. His face had gone gray and sweat beaded his skin.
“What ... what ... what did you do to me?”
“The whips’ poison filled me,” she said, grinning, “and I filled you.”
“Bitch!”
“I will not be eaten.”
He straightened, as if trying to resemble his old self, but he still appeared wretched. “You will. First, though, why don’t you experience a little more of what you’ve already seemed to enjoy.”
He nodded to the whip-wielders. They stepped forward, raised their weapons and began lashing Layanna. She screamed and arched her back. Avery called her name. One of the guards struck him in the abdomen with the flat of a large pincer. He doubled over. Layanna tried to edge away, but the Speaker, who must be some sort of high priest, subordinate only to the monarch, snapped instructions to his underlings, and they surrounded her, hemming her in. The whips rose and fell, and blood coursed along the floors. Avery’s heart twisted.
“They’re gonna cut her to pieces,” Hildra said, as the humans were pulled away from the area of the dais.
The torture went on, and it quickly became obvious that Davic did not mean for this to end quickly. The whips weren’t heavy enough to slice Layanna to the bone in a few strikes; it would take many, and each one would sting with awful fire. Unable to watch, Avery shifted his gaze, and something caught his attention.
“We’ve gotta do somethin’,” Janx said. Moisture beaded his face, and the leather patch covering his nose hole had become slightly dislodged, revealing a ragged edge of the cavity. “Our hands are free. We could rush ‘em. I think I could take one, maybe two—”
“No,” said Avery. He didn’t fear being overheard by Davic or the Magons, so loud were Layanna’s screams and the heavy breathing of the whip-wielders.
“Janx’s right,” Hildra protested. “We can’t just sit here.”
Avery gestured toward the thing that had caught his eye. “Do you see that?”
Janx and Hildra looked. There, behind the throne, a small archway led out from the room. Wind gusted through it, and Avery could see the stormy sky and a narrow stone walkway spanning nothingness. They were in the hollow of one of the pinnacles of stone, and beyond lay sky.
“Where does that walkway go to?” he asked Janx, closest to the opening. Avery’s glasses had become wet and it was hard to make out details too far away.
“I don’t ... some building, I think,” Janx said. “I see a small round thing standing on a tall spit of rock.”
“Like a temple?”
“Chapel, maybe.”
“Likely.”
‘That’s where they mean to sacrifice us,” Hildra said. “Must be.”
“Yes,” Avery said. “They’ll finish with Layanna, then haul us back there, to the monarch’s personal shrine, and sacrifice us to Davic on the altar, once he’s available, probably after force-feeding you two seafood. That’s where we make our move, on the walkway. It’s their only weak spot. We’re only going to get one chance. Let’s make it a good one.”
“How?”
“The walkway to the chapel is very narrow, isn’t it? Only one person, or Magon, will be able to walk across at a time ...” He spoke on, and Janx and Hildra listened. In the background, Layanna’s screams reached a high note, then tapered off. She slumped, utterly exhausted, with blood pooling all about her on the floor and a satisfied Davic standing over her.
“Now, my dear, you will be eaten. Your knowledge will have to die with you, I’m afraid. You’re obviously too dangerous to be allowed to linger.” His face was still gray, and Avery thought he was trembling slightly. To the Speaker, Davic said something in their language, then told Layanna: “I must cleanse my system. My worshippers will start the ritual, but don’t worry, I’ll be along soon.”
He left the room, and the Speaker turned to the monarch. Both had stood near the stairs throughout the proceedings, gazing at Layanna’s torment impassively. Now one of the Magons hefted her up and slung her over his hard shoulder. At some unspoken signal, the Magons guarding Avery, Hildra and Janx grabbed them and hauled them forward, toward the one who held Layanna. The monarch and Speaker spoke to the gathering for a few moments, then the Speaker turned and led the way toward the back of the chamber, to the archway howling with wind. The Magon bearing Layanna went after him, and Janx, Avery and then Hildra were shoved after this one. The two guards, then the monarch, and several other Magons, perhaps their version of nobles or high-ranking priests—official witness to the holy sacrifice—took up the rear.
Wind shrieked around Avery as he stepped foot on the narrow stone walkway. Gooseflesh prickled on his arms, and his stomach flipped as he beheld the great distance below. The walkway, really a bridge over the howling abyss, led to a small, ornate chapel located, as Janx had said, on the tip of a long, narrow pinnacle of stone whose base erupted straight out of the foamy, chaotic sea thousands of feet below. Arcs of lightning blasted as the crests pounded the pinnacle’s base, and even from here Avery could hear the muted sound of thunder. A screen of cloud stirred around him, but he could see enough through it to be sick.
Leaning to the side, peering around Janx, Avery could see Layanna carried across the Magon’s back.
“Layanna,” he whispered, and her eyes fluttered. “Can you bring your other-self over, even for a moment?”
In a weak voice, she said, “Need ... food ...”
“We’ll have to do it ourselves, then,” Hildra said.
“Now?” Janx said, but didn’t wait for Avery to give the go-head. The big man lunged into action. His large hands reached in front of him, grabbed Layanna by the arms and hauled her off the Magon’s shoulders, in the same motion practically hurling her at Avery, who went down under her weight on the narrow walkway.
Before the Magon that had been holding Layanna could even turn around, Janx had wrapped his hands around one edge of the rear carapace, and, every muscle in his thick arms straining, heaved. The Magon resisted for a breathless instant, and Avery feared its great weight would be too much for Janx, but then it listed to the side, and with a last grunt Janx heaved it all the way over. A thin, high warble escaped its mandibles, and then it plummeted through the mist toward the sea far, far below.
Meanwhile Hildra had engaged the Magon behind Avery, and was giving an excellent account of herself, slashing at its joints with her hook.
At the head of the column, the Speaker spun to Janx, pincers clacking. Janx dodged one snap, stepped inside of the creature’s reach and jabbed him as hard as he could in the eye stalks. The Speaker issued an abbreviated scream and jerked backward, collapsing just inside the chapel’s doorway.
Janx leaped over Avery and Layanna and helped Hildra with the Magon immediately behind them.
Avery, horribly aware of the abyss to either side, feeling the cold wind screaming around him, carefully maneuvered himself and Layanna to a sitting position, then helped her to her feet. She couldn’t walk on her own, but her eyes were blinking and she seemed conscious. The walkway was too narrow for two Magons to walk abreast, but it was just barely enough for Avery and Layanna. With him half supporting her, they stepped into the interior of the chapel.
The Speaker had rolled into the shadows, but at their arrival it lunged forward, snapping a claw at Avery’s head. Avery just managed to throw himself aside. Layanna fell to the floor near the altar, a hexagonal block of living, sponge-like material, eager to soak up blood. Avery wondered if its roots went all the way down through the column of rock to the sea.
The Speaker came at him again, snapping with one pincer, then another. Wide-eyed, Avery ducked and danced back, his legs shaky again. He was in no condition for this, if he ever had been.
The Speaker, he realized, was blinded, or at least its vision had been damaged when Janx tore at its eye-stalks. It lunged and snapped more or less where Avery was, but it was not as accurate as it should have been. Alchemical lamps on tall black iron poles lit the chamber in low light, their red-orange fluid slowly moving in their thick, frosted globes as if the fluid was alive, filling the chamber in lurid, bloody illumination, weak enough to further hamper the Speaker’s sight. Of course, the creature did not need to be too accurate to cut Avery in half in this small room with a big hunk of sponge taking up the middle of the floor space.
Doorways yawned at all four sides, and Avery realized that this wasn’t because multiple walkways led to the chapel but so visitors could appreciate the view, or perhaps simply be awed by the sight of the sea, of which the chapel’s gods were masters. Either way, they provided excellent avenues by which to dispatch the Speaker. Avery attempted to lure it close to one archway, then roll out of the way when it drew close and push it over. The attempt worked, but the creature was too heavy. He shoved against its carapace, and it didn’t budge.
It swung. Snapped.
Sweat flying, Avery moved aside.
He wished Janx would show himself, or Hildra, but both seemed to be occupied on the walkway.
As the Speaker advanced, Avery grabbed one of the iron poles the alchemical lamps perched on and flung it to the ground. The globe burst. Avery leapt back, holding his hands before his face. Fire erupted at the Speaker’s clawed feet, dousing its lower extremities in flame. It yelled out and stumbled back. The fire followed it, eating at its legs and working its way up slowly, hampered by the shell. Alchemical flame was hard to put out.
Screeching, the Speaker retreated beyond the pool of fire. Flame still ate at it, but it did not consume it quickly enough to suit Avery. The Speaker moved the other way around the altar, stepping over Layanna’s unmoving body, and advanced on Avery from the other direction.
Tense, ready to dodge one way or another, Avery gave ground, feeling the blistering heat against his rear.
The Speaker stalked toward him, pincers snapping even as fire ate into its legs. The pain only seemed to fuel its hate. Avery backed away as far as he could before the flames blocked further retreat. Desperate, he looked around—
A figure rose behind the Speaker.
Even as Avery prepared to leap on the altar (praying it wouldn’t grab at him; it looked awfully alive) and roll away from the Speaker’s claws, Layanna threw herself onto the Speaker’s back. Growling, half-mad, she clambered up its carapace, grabbed a fistful of dark green stalks in each hand, and pulled herself up to the top. Then, with a savage gleam in her eyes that would have normally
chilled Avery but which now cheered him, she sank her teeth into the back of the Speaker’s soft-fleshed head and began to chew.
Already insensate with pain, the Speaker thrashed and beat at her, but she was at an awkward spot for it to reach, and she easily avoided its snaps as she ripped and chewed at its flesh. Blood cascaded down its front and back, and Avery knew she’d hit a major vein or artery. At last strength fled the Speaker, and it collapsed, still twitching, on the altar, a sacrifice gone wrong. Crouching over it, careful not to touch the altar herself, Layanna continued to eat the Magon’s soft tissue even as flames consumed its lower half and the shrine filled with the stink of roasting turtle.
Avery stared at the grisly scene for a moment, then moved to the front doorway just as Janx and Hildra burst in, covered in blood, shirts and pants ripped, eyes wild.
“Fuck this!” Hildra said.
“Doc, we gotta get!” Janx said. “I can’t hold ‘em off anymore, and they’re drawing back to gear up for a rush, I think. If you’re gonna do something to the altar …”
That had been Avery’s original plan: to reach the temple ahead of the Magons and make a stand there. Perhaps threaten the altar somehow, before Davic arrived, and get them to back off. Buy Avery and the others time to figure something out. Perhaps find a way to lower themselves toward the sea.
Then, as Janx’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and smoke, he saw Layanna and said, “What the—? Is she—oh. Good.”
“Yes,” Avery said. The plan might have changed.
Peering out the door, he could see that the bridge was empty for the moment, but there was great activity in the throne room. It was probably Davic, having recovered from his illness, or near enough, coming to finish Layanna off.
Avery turned to her, busy eating. He knew that an intelligent being with the sea in its blood was the meal that would best feed her other-dimensional self, and he hated to interrupt her, but there was nothing for it.
“Layanna, we have to go.”