The man named Ziko did not concern himself with such details. Niks had taught him a lot and, first and foremost, it was that he had the power to decide things about himself if he wanted to. The first of which would be that he wanted to become himself fully – and to do that he needed to heal the fractured bond between them, still splintering inside him.
You must be convincing. This realm is finicky. It takes more than your pretty human words.
Ziko stripped back his thoughts and focused on the image of Niks in his mind, on the soft tap of her paws, the gold inlays reflecting on her mask, red eyes shining against green, triple tails like candle wicks when they caught flame. He tried to remember the way her voice sounded in his mind, the sigh of a breeze on a hot summer’s day, and the roar of the gale in the hardest of storms. He reminded himself what it felt like, to have pure crackling energy siphoning through him, the rumble of thunder overhead their shared war cry.
Niks. Niks Kataema. Come to me, Niks!
Stop it, Rift-breaker. You must not.
What he perceived to be the ground beneath his feet began to rumble and shake, the shapes and forms melding into one swirling potion of colours, spinning around and around until he was hypnotised by the motions, their hues so bright they hurt to witness. All of a sudden he was falling, the colours flashing past him in stripes of red and green until he felt sick with the speed that hurtled him towards a floor that would never come. If he could have screamed he would have, nauseous and scared, a terrible wailing starting from somewhere far away that drifted closer, closer, closer. It only seemed to propel him faster and he couldn’t find any way to stop.
You have the power here, he reminded himself. Focus on Niks. Focus on what you want.
It was a new thing for him, so used to suppressing any want or desire. To open that door felt like extending an invitation to the Reaper himself but he allowed it to swing open wide, picturing Niks on the other side. Ziko was not Seeker. Ziko had strength and willpower Seeker had never contained and he planned to show it. He could calm himself down, reel back the instinctive panic that came with the strangeness of this realm, and bring it to his heel.
Gradually his descent began to slow as his fear subsided, remembering the calm in Niks’ tone as she had spoken, so regal and lofty she had seemed a queen in a spirit’s body to him. Well, Ziko would show her how he had learned.
His feet touched the sanctuary of land and he sighed in relief, gazing around yet another unfamiliar landscape. As lawless as this land seemed to be, even it had rules. He just had to try and figure them out in time, lest he get lost here for evermore. A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him he did not know his way back but he quashed it with all the bravado he had left, taking his first steps through a landscape unsettling in its similarity to a home he had once known. The shifting silvery waves were not quite sand but they resembled the dunes all the same, painted eerie by the backdrop of an inky black expanse beyond.
Ziko had been wrong. He had never seen the real Netherworld, until now. For what else could it resemble, but the worst elements of his childhood, endless miles of desert with no end in sight. A black, soulless horizon, heavy with the threat of swallowing him whole. Hands breaking from the surface, bone-white and grasping, latching around his limbs and pulling him down, down, down. The sand swept over him, blocking out his senses until he was completely numb, covering up any traces he had been there at all. Everything was dark.
This was the worst punishment Ziko could imagine. Nothing. An endless nothing, except for the torture of his thoughts. The weakness in him chanted that this was his own folly, thinking he deserved a name, an identity, a self. He deserved this. What else could he expect?
But then a large eye blinked itself into existence before him and he was faced with his own reflection in the stark black of its pupil, ringed with a thin circle of red. It was a him he could only imagine – for there was no true physical form in this world – golden hair shining like a crown, his posture tall, strong, unlike the unassuming slip of a boy who had never dared to speak up. He stared back into that giant eye with all the composure he could muster, telling himself he was not afraid until he began to believe it.
The eye blinked again, fixed solely upon him. For a while he simply drifted there with it, locked in some kind of pocket free of time or reality. He did not think his will would work here, not against a creature like it, radiating so much power it singed his senses until the nuances of the spiritual currents were lost to him. Ziko thought he was being judged, the creature weighing all of his merit upon what its eye could see. Exposed, he felt the urge to cover himself somehow, to disguise all his failings lest it found him wanting.
Then the creature yawned, a mouth ripping through the fabric of darkness to reveal a swirling vortex of blue and purple. It exuded a force that pulled him in towards it and he panicked, desperately trying to pull himself out of the force of its gravity. The last thing he wanted when he was so close to finding Niks was to get swallowed down by this creature, nothing but fuel for its swollen form. Invisible hands tugged him back towards the gaping hole of its mouth and the more he struggled, the worse it became. The creature wasn’t even moving, content to lie and watch him struggle.
Ziko stretched out, trying to claw at anything, but his hands swooped through the inky blankness and swung back empty, nothing there to hold onto. He was close to touching the edges of a hideous mouth – close to being devoured completely and becoming just another part of its consciousness, buzzing and dreadful – so close to losing the self he had fought so hard to find. But it wasn’t over until he was well and truly dead, so fight on Ziko did.
Picturing a ladder with all the force that he could, he nearly let go in relief when one flickered into view before him. For a heart-wrenching moment he felt his mind splinter and fray under the pressure of the creature’s aura, shrieking filling his head as he lost grip of his thoughts, scattered in so many pieces he couldn’t possibly hope to find them all once more. So he honed in on the ladder, focusing on touching it with his fingertips, like real steel beneath hands he could only imagine in this realm. Gripping it tight, he hauled himself out of range of the beast behind him as its jaws snapped around him.
It caught part of his essence and he screamed out, only there was no noise but the crackling hum all around him like a thousand cicadas in a high season evening. Remembering where he was or what he was doing became more and more difficult. It would be so easy to just let go. To fade into the black, join with the creature and forget all this struggle. To end the suffering that seemed to be woven into the tale of his life, time and time again.
But Ziko had known suffering and struggle and strife. They had become friends to him in their own way, so familiar were they to him. So he scrambled up the ladder, not praying as his father would have told him to do, but believing that it was enough to keep the creature at bay. A light went on at the top, shining down upon his face from above. Aiming for the light, he kept going and going until he managed to spill over the top, rolling into a brand new landscape.
It was an open sea and he stood upon the waves. When he gazed down he could see through the surface, to where riftspawn swam in the depths below, their forms swirling around one another and trailing tangible threads of spiritual energy. All around him there was the inhale and exhale of the rift, the natural pulse of this realm that he tuned into on instinct, calmed by the way it settled his nerves. And squinting beyond the gentle roll and swell of the waves, the light still shone.
A breeze tickled through his hair, fingers caressing his scalp. The waves crashed down around his ankles and opened up his view. There she was, some feet away from him, standing upon the waves with the same ease as he, triple flamed tail sparking despite being surrounded by so much water. Ziko smiled as the sun shone upon her mask.
Niks, he said, walking towards her until they were but an inch from one another. Suddenly he could breathe. The tension seeped from him in one fell gust, leaving him light and
giddy. Euphoric. Reaching out, his fingers crested the top of her head above the mask, between the triangles of her ears, and with a zing he felt something inside him snap, like a bone that had needed resetting.
In the realm beyond the physical, where anything and everything was possible, Ziko became whole again.
Part Two: Another Farewell
“Stop, stop, stop!” cried the harried looking inn owner as he charged down the corridor towards them, apparently less afraid now that there was a stack of riftbeasts piled high from the slaughter. One twitched its legs in the last throws of life and Rook sniffed, grimacing as Janus caught her gaze and snorted. Her distaste for them had been unexpected but amusing, screeching when one had crawled up her leg. She had hacked that one to pieces until she was now covered in gore as well as rainwater. He looked no better, coated in grime and viscera.
“I think that’s the last of them,” said Rook, oblivious to his distress. She cocked her head, thinking. “Yeah, I don’t feel any in the immediate vicinity.”
“Look at the mess!” cried the innkeeper. “There are bullet holes in the walls!”
Janus scrubbed at his chin. It seemed a small price to pay to be free of the creatures infesting his walls. Getting rid of them was a bit of specialist task, some collateral damage was only inevitable. At Rook’s look, he smothered a sigh before it could escape. “Sorry,” he grunted.
The innkeeper’s eyes swivelled between them, bugging, before he stared at the mess of bodies littering the corridor. “What am I supposed to do with those? And who are you to be running around with those things?” He gestured to Rook’s riftblades, swerving back when she twirled one in her hand with a grin.
“We’re just here to help.”
“I sent for the rift maidens to sort this out. They wouldn’t have made this mess.”
Her smile faded and Janus considered just knocking him out for having the audacity to dim her aura. She had been much quieter on their journey from Tsellyr, prone to spells of contemplative silence unlike her usual vibrant energy. Most nights he would spy her sitting cross legged on a coil of rope at the bow of the ship as she had stared out into a restless sea, cheek crushed into the cage of her hand. To see her brightening upon their arrival in the city had been enough to uplift his own mood. If he could he would nurture her fragile happiness. They had both seen too much over the past months that scrounging up what positivity they could was a mammoth task.
“Should get going,” he said to Rook, holstering his gun. “Need to find somewhere to rest.”
“But…” she took another look at the innkeeper, currently shaking his head as he kicked at a lifeless riftbeast and nodded. “It’s late. I don’t know where will be open at this time.”
They would find somewhere, Janus would make sure of that. He turned to leave when the innkeeper whirled on them. “Where do you think you’re going? Do you know what you owe for damages?”
A gun barrel in his face made him recoil immediately, eyes flicking between it and Janus’ own dark gaze. He swallowed, taking a step back. Janus might have sworn to be a better man but he felt no remorse for this. The both of them were weary and worn from their journey, damp and cold, and now coated in guts from the infestation of creatures that belonged somewhere between the physical and spiritual realms.
“Might want to reconsider, Wei.”
Rook rested a hand on his arm and he dropped it with one last look. “I’m sorry for the mess. We’ll just be going.”
A floorboard creaked behind them and Janus whipped around to face a pair of young women, unsettled by how they had managed to sneak up on him with their sandalled feet. Their kobi glided across the floor, making them look like they were almost floating towards their party in the hallway. Both women were tall with dark hair in braids knotted around their heads. They performed a curt bow, eyes scanning over the scene.
“We are here to answer your call, Hylan-wei,” said the one in red.
“It would seem we are not the only one,” said the one in blue. She was about an inch shorter than her companion, thinner, with high arching cheekbones and a hooked nose. “Neither of you are from here.”
Janus’ hand instinctively went to his belt. He had heard of rift maidens – even witnessed those of them who travelled for the solstice events during the low season, little more than performers for coin – but he had never seen real rift maidens in action. From the dismissals of those he had worked with in his time taking jobs for the Order of the Riftkeepers, he had expected them to be softer. Meeting their gazes head on, he could tell that what he had heard and the reality were different beasts, for few could look into his gaze so unflinchingly. The tension in their shoulders told him they wanted a fight.
Rook pushed back her sleeve to reveal her tattoo, nudging him in the ribs until he did the same. “I am a rift warden in training, on my way back to Lyrshok from where I first set out on my journey. Tell me, Danshei, do you know how they fare there? I have been unable to reach them. In Tsellyr we arrived to find that The Order in Tsellyr had been cleared out and no one could tell us where they had gone. Have you heard anything? At all?” Her words spilled out in a rush, almost incomprehensible.
The two rift maidens glanced at one another. “We keep little contact with the barracks in Lyrshok. I do not know what to tell you.”
“If you care so much you can return there,” added the women in blue. “Now, if you don’t mind, we have a problem to see to.”
“But –”
“We do not answer to you, no matter what you might think. We can do our job without becoming like you.”
Rook’s expression darkened and Janus latched a hand onto her arm to settle the frustration and hurt twisting her face before she did something she would regret. “What does that mean?”
The woman in red seemed to be playing his part to her companion, murmuring, “Neyvik, please.”
“We do not pervert the natural laws like you do,” said Neyvik, brushing past Rook hard enough to bump into her shoulder.
“I have trained for years to learn mastery over my affliction,” she said, colder than Janus could ever remember her. “I have studied the rifts and how best to maintain them. On my journey north I have seen more of their ways than you will ever experience in your life.”
“Oh?” said Neyvik, stepping up to her. They were of a height, almost nose to nose, brown eyes on grey. Janus spared a look for the maiden’s worried companion in red who was biting her lip, pivoting on her heel as if wrestling with herself on whether to intervene. “You think you know everything, don’t you? You think a few moons of travel make you so much more worldly than me, do you? Try dedicating your entire life to the rift and then come speak with me. You know nothing. You could never know what I know unless you spent your life chained to one.”
“I have dedicated myself to the rifts! It is you who knows nothing. What do the sightless know of the colours of the rifts?” Her eyes briefly flashed silver and Neyvik stepped back with her hands on her waist, a satisfied smile on her lips.
“And there it is. As always, thinking your posturing makes you brave. You think you can intimidate me because you are a slave to the demon inside of you? Should I fall to my knees and beg you to save the poor helpless little rift maiden?”
“Neyvik, maybe –”
“No, I know your kind well enough. I have no need for your help, Chana. Run off and leave us be.”
“How do you plan on doing anything when you’re just a –”
“A what? A rift maiden?” Neyvik’s gaze was sharp enough to cut.
Rook looked equally hostile, shoulders a tense, angry line. “I have done nothing to you. Why do you look at me like I am Var Kunir himself?”
Neyvik snorted. “You flatter yourself.”
A shriek drew Janus’ attention from the ensuing fight. Neither woman appeared to notice Hylan the innkeeper as he jerked back from the bodies, a hand slapped over his mouth and his eyes popping wide. Following his gaze, he saw one of the bodies
twitch, legs suddenly crawling towards one another. The creature that emerged from the pile was less one beast, so much as it was a concoction of various body parts of others, smashed together to make a hideous monster that scuttled along the floor, its gait jerking because two legs were longer than the rest.
Hylan screeched and fell against the wall as it darted past him, one hand poised on the wall to steady himself. Its feet pattered against the dusty floorboards, surrounded by a deep purple aura that seemed to be the only thing keeping its lumps of disjointed flesh together. Eyes spun around from boils all over its body, never focusing on any one thing. That was, until Janus pulled out his gun and they all swivelled to him at once. The shouts of Rook and Neyvik’s voices sounded behind him as it crashed into one wall, slaking off a chunk of rotting flesh, before it darted the other way like a drunken soldier. He took aim.
The bang reverberated through the sliver of a corridor, walls vibrating with the force of it in such a confined space. All heads turned to him, smoke rising from the muzzle of his revolver as the purple light snuffed out, the flesh creature collapsing in a heap before his feet.
“What in the Locker is that?” exclaimed Neyvik.
Rook stepped towards him, crouching down to peer at it. She wrinkled her nose. “That is pretty disgusting.”
The innkeeper twisted to the side and retched, shoulders shaking, while Rook continued to prod at the dead creature on the ground. “Normally they stay dead.”
“It’s been happening more and more,” said the girl in red, eyes sweeping over it calmly. “Riftspawn have been coming back after they have been banished. Doors have been opening across these islands and it means they can travel so easily back to our world.”
The Rising Tide Page 5