by Tom Lloyd
Twice the height and length of an elephant, they had no heads that Shell could make out, but pulses of shifting light within them seemed to outline changing shapes under the surface of their flesh. The suggestion of dozens of eyes, their positions forever changing and evolving, moved around a jagged darkness at the very front that was all too easy to imagine as the maw of the beast. Cables of flesh hung limp at their sides, twitching listlessly while they surged past with mindless, peristaltic determination.
Faint, eerie hoots and cries rose up through the still air. Each one was accompanied by a ripple of near-translucent flesh – the leathery skin distending as cartilage jutted briefly inside. The trailing, fleshy cables exuded a lumpy secretion as they passed, one that seemed to leave dark scars on the landscape in their wake. A muted odour of decay hung in the air – of things long dead and mouldering bones rather than the sharp stink of rot. An air of age and great sadness seemed to surround the beasts, a strange contrast to the glorious silver light that shone down upon them.
Ice gestured for her to lie back down. With an effort, Shell tore her gaze from the awful, wondrous shambling shapes, and eased back into the nest of warmth in Moss’s lee. She looked up at the stars once more, the swathe of silver that filled half the sky, and was lost in the cold glitter of light until darkness took her once more.
WHEN SHELL WOKE again, the twilight of earlier had returned – the stars fewer, but among them the comforting sight of her arrow home.
‘Was it real?’ she called to Ice as she struggled upright. Ignoring the confused looks from Moss and Lichen, Shell crossed the crown of stone to where the angel stood, on guard as it had been before.
‘Well? The silver stars? The beasts that passed us? Was it just a dream?’
‘It was real,’ Ice confirmed. ‘Night brighter than the day. It is rare here, I believe. The creatures too.’
‘And you didn’t wake us to see it?’ Lichen exclaimed, scratching his bald head where the slight shading of stubble was starting to appear. It made him look more human, more familiar and the sight startled Shell for some reason.
‘Had the beasts noticed you, had a word been spoken, they would have consumed us all – drawn us inside their flesh to be imprisoned long years until absorbed.’
Shell shivered at the cold certainty in the angel’s voice as much as the image it had conjured in her mind. ‘Even you?’
‘I could not defeat so many, not so far from the God.’
Ice went to the centre of the circle and withdrew its flaming sword from the stone at the centre with only a faint grating sound. It sheathed the weapon and started walking away until Shell, realising it was setting off for the day, caught its arm to stop it. The angel’s flesh was as cold and hard as stone. Just that brief contact sent a stinging tingle through her flesh and, as Ice halted, Shell stepped back, rubbing the feeling back into her fingers.
‘Wait,’ she said, wincing. ‘We’re not ready to leave.’
Shell pointed back at Lichen, the thin man still sitting and scratching his head. Moss was on the other side of the circle pissing noisily against one of the stones and whistling with forced cheer as he did so.
‘We must leave now.’
Shell cocked her head at it. ‘But we need to pack our belongings. Have you forgotten we’re not angels?’
‘Time is against us. Be quick.’
Something about its manner told Shell that was an order. She hesitated a moment longer then scrambled to roll the skins and blankets they’d slept under. The angel’s threat to kill her entire village loomed in her memory. It was not a slaver or similar sort of thug – Ice had no basic streak of viciousness in its bones or need to assert its dominance, but it had no morals either. It would be courteous right up until the point it felt violence would work better. Whether or not it left its sword to warm them or defended them against attack, it had forced her here and would force her onward.
Moss quickly caught on to her manner and moved to help, while a brief word snapped at Lichen ensured he did the same. In a handful of minutes they set out in the angel’s wake, each afforded a knuckle of dense black bread as breakfast. Ice led, never looking back once they were underway, and for once Moss lingered with Shell rather than storming past. Shell saw the spark of anger in the man’s eyes; though he said nothing it was clear the burly soldier was wondering, just as she was, at what point Ice might turn on them.
Moss was there for her, seemingly determined to face any odds in an effort to keep faith with his idle, and often drunken, professions of devotion. It was clear he felt a more real kinship for her than just that, however. Even a skilled warrior did not travel into danger out of boastfulness. Perhaps because she was one of the few in the village who had travelled beyond its bounds, perhaps because she had no time for his foolishness, Shell couldn’t say. Whatever the reason, in that moment she felt a surge of gladness at his presence and the lengths he was willing to go, all for someone he had no real obligation towards.
As they struggled along the wind-scoured plateau, it really hit home for her what he had done. Looking out over lifeless leagues of wasteland reminded her how terribly alone and vulnerable they were there, dragged in the wake of a being that cared nothing for her life and considered her a tool. Lichen she would have forced to stay behind but for the wisphound’s bite, but Moss she had barely bothered to try and persuade. The set to his shoulders had been enough for that. The man was determined and would never be swayed, but what Shell had done to deserve such friendship she couldn’t imagine.
The view from where they walked would have been breathtaking in any normal place. The ground sloped sharply away to their right, opening out a vista such as only pagan gods atop a mountain should be afforded. Winding paths cut through the plains like long-dead rivers, funnels of dust reaching up into the sky hundreds of miles away – Shell glimpsed faces in those and knew it was more than her imagination, but she had no desire to question Ice about them.
There were lights and darting movements, barely visible at the distance of so many hundred miles; far earthquakes that tore the ground apart and opened vast yawning chasms, but only trembled her toes and caused Lichen to stumble in surprise. While the wind blew constantly, it seemed not to chill as it should – as though it was just a ghost breeze rather than anything too real.
It did carry sounds though, distant chittering noises and half-imagined voices seemingly raised in invocation. The crack of stone came more regularly, deep peals tearing the sky like the dragons of dusk and filling the unsettling space above them with something more tangible than mere sound.
She felt dizzy when the ground started to climb again, rising higher into the blackness and the air thinning, though the great distant mountains towered yet further above. They punctured the very sky itself and Shell almost fell as she imagined how far she could see from their peaks. She kept her eyes downcast after that, preferring to watch the steady plod of her feet over the packed ground.
After a period of time - Shell had no way to count - they entered a forest unlike any she had seen before. Rock and stone surrounded them still, but now it was upright shards ranging from a few feet tall to a hundred or more. Varying wildly in form, they were all strange angular shapes that seemed to be neither exactly organic nor carved by mortal hand. There was plenty of space to pass between them, but Shell felt increasingly vulnerable and small as they wound their way through. Many of the very tallest seemed to have some sort of thin mist gathered around their peaks in lifeless imitation of a forest’s tree canopy. The wind whistled oddly down from those concealing masses, the alien calls of prey and predator both, but she saw nothing living or otherwise moving above them. In the far distance, beyond the forest’s extent, Shell saw a dark figure moving quickly past – miles away but so tall she could easily make out its long slender body and some sort of crest of feathers or horn instead of a head. The figure walked like a man, but silently, and she felt nothing of the giant’s footsteps through the ground as, mere moments lat
er, it disappeared beyond sight.
The stone forest thinned as they went, the smaller protrusions dwindling while the larger minority became increasingly vast and impossible. Single menhirs rose awkwardly then split once, twice, even three times in jagged imitation of trees, their branches bare and roost to nothing. Soon the travellers were as ants passing the feet of gigantic twisting and branching spires, fifty yards or more between them, but so large the crooked fingers of stone faintly brushed each other. The air sang with a deep creak and grind where two met, but as they walked on, the sounds faded again and the stone protrusions began to merge into each other or twist around one another like ivy.
Great archways were formed here and there. Then at what Shell assumed was the centre of the forest stood a pleached quartet formed in a rough square, each stone twenty yards across at their base and several hundred high. Angular stone branches met and interlocked with those of the other protrusions, then turned inward as though intent on meeting at a peak in millennia to come.
Shell felt a jolt in her stomach as they neared the structure and she saw a distinct light on the ground. At the very centre of the square was what appeared to be a sphere set into the rocky ground, just a portion visible two yards across. Its glow illuminated nothing and, as they reached it, Shell found she could look at the light comfortably. Just behind the whiteness she thought she could see movement, the faint sound of voices on the breeze, but when she crouched at the edge to look closer, Moss grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and pulled her back.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. She tried to shake him off but for once the big soldier was insistent and he half-dragged her back a few yards. When it was clear she wasn’t going to move forward again, he released her and he lowered his eyes.
Shell stood and faced him. ‘What was that, Moss?’
‘Looked like you were going to touch it,’ he muttered. ‘Reckon that’d have been a bad idea.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I heard voices, voices I knew. Ain’t heard my sister’s laugh in a long time but I’d know it anywhere, that giggle she had as a child. Was the purest sound anyone ever heard and it’s got no place out here.’
‘So?’
Moss straightened, his hand tightening around his axe. ‘So don’t be a damn fool. That’s some sort o’ marsh lantern, no doubt out here it’s a whole damn lot nastier too. Best we keep well clear.’
Shell looked around, first at the stones looming on all sides then over at Ice. ‘Has it lured us here?’
The angel blinked. ‘I do not know this thing. I heard no voices.’
‘Course you didn’t,’ Moss growled, ‘you ain’t really alive.’
‘What about the Voiceless? Is he here?’
Ice knelt, wings spread out wide and palms held flat over its eyes. Shell saw its lips move as it spoke quietly, either prayer or incantation, then felt a strange tingle in her wrists as the black stains on her skin seemed to awaken.
‘The Voiceless is near,’ Ice announced after a short while. The angel lowered its hands and pointed off past one of the great stones. ‘That direction.’
‘So why did we come here?’
‘It is a nexus,’ Ice replied, standing again. ‘Entities are drawn here.’
‘Oh, fucking great,’ Moss snapped, raising his axe. ‘I knew it, a marsh lantern drawing us in.’
Ice looked at Moss for a moment then reached behind its head and drew its sword. ‘You are not quite correct.’
‘Oh?’
‘I sense something is here, watching us.’
‘Oh gods,’ Shell gasped and grabbed her spear. ‘Not a marsh lantern, a spider’s web!’
They clustered together a few dozen yards removed from the light, Lichen holding the reins of both beasts while the other three held their weapons at the ready. For a long while nothing happened and Shell was about to suggest they leave quickly when Ice spoke up and pointed.
‘There.’
She turned to see, but only caught a darting flash of shadow before it vanished again.
‘What is it? The Voiceless?’ she asked hopefully.
‘No.’
Another blur of shadow passed across her view, circling swiftly as it winked in then out of sight again. It was large, far larger than the Voiceless and lacked a human’s shape, but what it was Shell had no idea. At her side there was a ‘whump’ of flames as the angel’s sword ignited and its orange light flickered on the ground around them.
Without warning, Ice darted forward, wing-tips slapping at Shell’s head as the angel threw itself at something she couldn’t see. The burning sword rose and fell, slashed and carved a great arc of flame through the air. If it caught anything, Shell couldn’t see it, but in the next moment an angular nightmare of shadow rose up from the rocky ground. Long, crooked limbs clawed forward at Ice who rose above them and cut downwards. Flame parted shadow and a severed limb fell, melting into nothing before it reached the floor just as more claws snagged the angel’s wing.
Ice was dragged down, hauled off-balance and smashed into the floor, but the angel struck the ground and jerked back up, slashing at the heart of the shadow. The burning sword hit the dark boiling mass dead-centre and lit a path through it, carving it neatly open. The shadow seemed to erupt from within and fold out on itself, writhing and convulsing out from the wound Ice had made, until abruptly it turned to nothing and vanished.
The angel looked around for a moment then lowered its sword. ‘It is dead,’ Ice announced.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘And there’s only one of ’em?’
‘I do not know.’
Shell glanced over at the buried sphere and realised its weak light had increased. It was not bright, but the light was waxing steadily. ‘Out of the stones!’ she yelled, giving Lichen a shove with one hand. ‘Move, out!’
‘What is it?’ Moss asked, moving with them. ‘Where?’
‘That was a shadow,’ she said, looking desperately around. ‘Shadows are cast by a light on something and we’re the only things inside this!’
Moss said nothing more, just looked up at the air between two stones where strands of shadow were threading between each other. That was enough for them to break into a run, Lichen barely keeping a hold on Horse’s reins as they clattered clear of the stones. Ice was still inside, the slow beat of its wings holding it thirty-odd yards above the ground as the angel turned to watch the movement of shadows around it.
‘Ice, get out!’ Shell called.
‘Not yet.’
‘Ice!’ She shouted desperately as the threads knitted tighter around each other then darted sideways and vanished from sight. ‘Another one’s forming!’
‘I know.’
‘So move!’
‘I can defeat it,’ Ice said calmly. ‘This I know. If I leave the confines, it may be released into the forest beyond.’
Before Shell could speak again, Lichen yelped. The stained man pointed to the far side of the formation, where Ice’s shadow would be cast by the lit sphere. More threads were building there, drawing together in parody of Ice’s body with wings outstretched. In the blink of an eye, another shape joined it and merged with the greater one.
‘Behind you!’ Shell cried, and Ice dropped and wheeled immediately, sword ready to meet the threat, but then just held its ground, watching the knitting shadows as though fascinated.
The shape became darker and more solid with every passing second; twice the size of Ice with curved hooks in the place of flight feathers. As it became more real, the shadow took on a monstrous appearance; a thick torso with a long sinuous tail and the wing shapes splitting into three huge, fat limbs loosely connected by strands of shadow. A profusion of lesser limbs sprouted from its centre, spindly and whip-fast, while Shell could make out nothing of its head beyond three jointed mandibles that converged on where a mouth should be.
With two beats of its wings, Ice climbed to the peak of the structure, hovering
below the canopy of stone tines as it watched the horror darken. It seemed to be more flesh than shadow now – its skin crisscrossed like scarring where the shadows had woven themselves together – and with every passing moment it flexed its limbs in readiness to hunt.
Without warning, Ice dived with wings folded and flaming sword roaring. The creature slashed at the air with its lesser limbs and hurled threads of shadow at the angel, but flames met them. The threads parted as Ice struck with perfect timing, then fire exploded over one great limb as the sword struck again. The creature twisted; dodging away from the angel’s next blow then wheeling upwards as though it stood on an invisible web strung between stones.
Ice barely brought its sword back around to catch the creature’s claws before flames erupted over its shadow-mesh hide. If that hurt it, Shell saw no sign as it clumsily swatted the angel with one wing of limbs. Ice was hurled thirty yards before the angel opened its wings and arrested the movement, but, as it did so, tangling shadows seemed to fill the air around it.
The angel fell, wings snagged and slashing at the air in an attempt to free itself. It hit the ground with an echoing thump, well beyond the stone structure, but the shadow creature made a tugging gesture and somehow hauled Ice back within the bounds. It picked its way to a high position, climbing on its unseen webs with delicate precision before plunging down onto Ice who staggered drunkenly below. For a moment the angel disappeared from view amid the flailing mass, then some fighter’s instinct brought it chopping clear. Flames from its sword burst across the shadow’s body, but it seemed uncaring of the wounds it was taking and Shell could see silvery trails running from several rents in Ice’s clothes – the blood of angels shining bright in the twilight.