Black Halo

Thirty-Four

Gariath was not dead yet.

Not for lack of opportunity, of course. He darted through a web of iron and curses, batting away clumsy blades, suffering the blows of those too cunning or lucky for him to avoid. Every metal favour bestowed upon him he reciprocated with claws and teeth, forcing his assailants back.

He was vaguely surprised that he could feel the many cuts on his body. He didn’t remember the longfaces being quite so strong as they had been when he first encountered them. But Irontide, and the flesh he had rent in suicidal frenzy, had been many eternities ago.

He was less aware of death this time, and so was aware of many more things as he caught an errant blade in his hand and tore it free from the offending longface’s grasp.

Pain was among them, but so, too, were the humans.

What had began as a chaos of fire and thunder on the deck had since degenerated into a chaos of fire, thunder, steel, cursing, spitting and screaming.

Arrows fell from the sky in intermittent fiery drizzles, longfaces scrambling to seek cover from them or return fire with hasty shots. Those few who simply couldn’t be bothered to hide had either sought another target or clung by their master’s side, occasionally intervening between him and a lightning bolt thrown from the dark-skinned human.

Of their sacrifice, the longface with the burning eyes took no notice, consumed wholly with his target. Whatever bemusement had been present on his face had been consumed in the vivid anger with which his eyes flared. He was no longer even making an attempt at appearing as though he was swatting a gnat. Now, he displayed the anger appropriate to a man swatting at a gnat that spewed fire and frost at him.

Those netherlings that had decided to seek easier prey had found them in the leaking weaklings pressed against the deck. Lenk refused to move, clutching his shoulder and staring quietly into nothingness, murmuring something equally stupid. The squeaky little human seemed torn between uselessly trying to get him on his feet and uselessly trying to assist the flying human, apparently by squealing and occasionally hurling something limp-wristedly at the longface.

Impotent, drained, useless and otherwise weak; they deserved to die, he knew.

What he didn’t know was why the netherlings seeking to kill them found him imposed between them. Such a thought rose to him again as he caught a rampaging blade in his palm and snarled, shoving the wielder back and meeting her grin with a scowl. After all, it wasn’t as though there weren’t bigger problems to handle.

Bigger problems with tremendous teeth.

Such a problem made itself known in a shadow that blossomed like a flower over the netherling, blackness banished by the resounding thunder of blue jaws snapping, a scream leaking out between teeth, purple legs flailing wildly as a great serpentine head swept up and shook back and forth to silence its writhing, shrieking prisoner.

No guttural roar that boiled behind its teeth could drown out the noise of flesh rending as an errant leg went flying before the rest of the sinewy mass disappeared behind fangs and down a throat.

The Akaneed, far from sated, levelled its yellow stare at Gariath. The dragonman forgot his other foes in that instant, as the great serpent seemed to forget its other meals. Their gazes went deeper into each other, curiosity turning to respect turning to anger in an instant. In each other, they saw something familiar.

In the great serpent, Gariath saw sharp teeth stained with blood, narrowed yellow slits glowing in the night. He saw in them now what he had seen a week ago, upon a beach he had intended to be his grave: hunger, hatred, an end.

To everything.

In Gariath, the Akaneed saw something distinctly different.

This was made violently clear as its neck snapped, sending gaping jaws hurtling towards him. The dragonman lunged backwards as the serpent’s snout speared the deck, shattered the wood and scattered the living and the dead.

The ship shook and groaned as the serpent tried to pull its maw free from the ship’s hull, sending combatants rolling about the deck as they struggled to keep their footing. Gariath clung to the deck, his claws embedded in wood as he swept a fervent gaze about the deck.

A good chance to escape, he noted. Lenk won’t move. The runt won’t leave. You could make them, though. They’re small, stupid. You want to protect them, don’t you? Life is precious now, right? Worth saving and all that. The snake is distracted. The longfaces are distracted. The Shen are …

Watching, he noticed, dozens of yellow eyes staring from canoes.

Waiting, he realised, their bows lowered, bodies tense.

For him, he knew, as he found a single amber eye in the throng of lizardmen and met Yaike’s gaze.

They were watching him. Waiting to see what this red thing was. Waiting to see if what they knew of Rhega was true or if they had all died long ago.

He would show them.

He rushed forward, striding over the dead, trampling the living, sliding on claws as the Akaneed pulled itself free, its jaws tinted red and brimming with shards of wood. He leapt, flapped his wings to pull him aloft and towards the creature’s snout. He fell upon it with a snarl, sinking claws into blue flesh.

In an eruption of splinters and a thunderous roar, the dragonman became an angry red tick, clinging tenaciously with claws dug firmly into the tender flesh of the creature’s nostrils as its serpentine neck twisted and writhed like a whirlwind as it struggled to dislodge this clawed, fanged parasite.

Gariath could not let that happen. His path became all the clearer as he clawed his way, arm’s length by arm’s length, up the creature’s snout, hands digging fresh wounds, feet thrust into old ones. Each time, for a moment, he knew it would be easy to let go and fly into dark water, to sink until he could see, feel, breathe no more. Each time, he continued to claw forward.

He was Rhega. They would see. They would know.

‘I haven’t met you,’ he growled to the Akaneed. ‘There was another one. I took much from him. Eyes, teeth …’ It replied with a roar and a futile attempt to shake him off. ‘You, you’re going to give me more. The fight, the blood … it means a great deal more than eyes and teeth.’ He clawed his way up to eyes which burned yellow hate. ‘Thank you.’ He drew back a fist. ‘I’m sorry.’

Through the squelch of membrane and the ensuing, wailing howl, Gariath’s first thought was that an eye was very much like a hard-boiled egg, in both texture and the way yellow crumbled into sopping goo. His second thought was for the feeling of air beneath him and the ocean rising up before him as the Akaneed threw him from its head.

He flapped furiously, found a writhing blue column as he fell and twisted himself to meet it. His claws found rubbery skin, shredding it and drawing forth red blood and echoing howls from the beast as he slid down the Akaneed’s hide, struggling to slow his fall. His hands tensed to the point of agony, claws threatening to rip from his fingers.

When he slowed to a halt, the beast had no more agony to spew forth, its roar becoming a low growl. It swayed dizzily upon the waves, fighting the pain inside it, struggling to stay awake, afloat, alive.

Gariath felt a pang of sympathy. It was only momentary, though, as he turned to face the dozens of yellow eyes fixated upon him. They were wide with appreciation … or he thought, or he wanted to think. It was so hard to see their stares at this range, swaying on the serpent’s hide, his own eyes veiled by pain and weariness.

‘I am alive,’ he cried to them, his voice hoarse. ‘The Rhega is alive. The Rhega still live.’ He slammed a fist to his chest. ‘I am alive. Look. Look at me.’ He couldn’t hear the shrill desperation in his voice, couldn’t feel the tears welling up in his eyes. ‘I am Rhega. Answer me!’ He forced the words through a choked throat. ‘Talk to me!’

They said nothing, showed nothing behind their yellow stares. One by one, the fires of their arrows were snuffed into darkness. One by one, each Shen disappeared into gloom, bodies lost among the shadows.

‘No!’ Gariath roared at them. ‘You can’t leave now! Not when I’m so close!’

They continued to wink out, ceasing to exist as their flames did, giving no sign that they heard him, or cared what he had to say. He continued to shriek at them, as though they might provide an answer, any answer, before they vanished completely.

‘How do you know the Rhega?’ he howled at them. ‘Where are they? How do you speak the language? Where are they? What happened to them?’ His voice became a whining, wailing plea. ‘WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER ME?’

They continued to say nothing, continued to disappear until all that remained was a single, flickering flame, illuminating a single yellow eye. Yaike stared, expressionless, the ruin of what had once been his eye seeming to stare far deeper, speak far louder, than his whole eye or his rasping voice.

‘Jaga, Rhega,’ he spoke. ‘Home. All that we do, we do for it.’

‘And what does a Rhega do? Tell me.’

And the last light sizzled out, cloaking the lizardman in darkness, leaving nothing but a voice on lingering wisps of smoke.

‘I am Shen.’

Gariath stared at the darkness, listening for the sound of oars dipping into water through the distant carnage of the deck and the flesh-deep groan of the Akaneed. And through it all, he could hear the voice of the grandfather, speaking with such closeness as to suggest the spirit was right next to him.

‘What does a Rhega do, Wisest?’

His answer came slowly, his eyes and voice cast into the darkness.

‘Life is precious,’ Gariath whispered. ‘A Rhega lives.’

‘Is it, Wisest?’

Gariath became distinctly aware of the two creatures alone on the ship behind him, so weak, so helpless. He had fought to defend them moments ago. He had chosen them, moments ago. He had been one of them moments ago.

Now, he was Rhega.

‘Life is precious, Wisest,’ the grandfather reminded him.

Without looking back, Gariath muttered, ‘To those who earn it.’

And then hurled himself into the water, pursuing the darkness.

Dreadaeleon couldn’t think.

Ordinarily, he would chastise himself for such a thing. He was, theoretically, the smart one and took an immense amount of pride in living up to that expectation.

Still, between the lingering crackle of electricity and the deep-throated groan of the wounded Akaneed, the stench of brimstone caked with the coppery odour of blood and the vast, vast number of corpses on the deck, he found himself hard-pressed to assign himself any blame.

His senses were overwhelmed, not merely blinded and deafened by the chaos of the deck, but struck dull in the mind. The continuous clash of magical energies of lightning, fire, frost and the occasional exploding paper crane had bathed his brain in a bright crimson light that he sought to force a thought through.

Moments ago, he had felt something else: a surge of something that he had never felt before, a bright inky black stain on the endless sheet of red. It was new, carrying a stinging, clean pain that always came attached to unknown agonies.

And yet … had he never felt this before? he wondered.

He recalled vague hints of it, here and there: errant black patches in his vision that came, agonised, and left instantly. He recalled it in Irontide before, on the beach with Asper …

Asper, he thought. I should be saving Asper, shouldn’t I? That’s what we came here to do … Where is she? What was the plan? Damn it, why can’t I think straight?

He cursed himself, despite the fact that he knew only an insane person could think straight in these conditions and Gariath had already leapt overboard. Lenk, however …

Where was he, anyway? There was something wrong with him, surely, but what had it been?

Clearly, if anything was to be done, it was going to have to be done by someone with a rational mind, keen intellect and preferably enough power to level a small ship.

Bralston, however, seemed a tad preoccupied, if the sudden shape of his cloak-clad body hurtling towards Dreadaeleon was any indication.

He darted to the side as Bralston struck the mast bodily, his form, singed and smoking, sinking to the deck. The fire in his eyes waned and flickered as he struggled to keep them and the power within them conscious.

Dreadaeleon nearly jumped when the Librarian turned them upon him.

‘Your thoughts?’ Bralston asked.

‘Run,’ Dreadaeleon said.

‘Venarium law permits no retreat.’

‘He … uh … he’s not getting tired.’

‘Confirming my hypothesis. The stones feed him.’

‘Their power can’t be limitless.’

‘They seem to be.’

‘No,’ Dreadaeleon said, shaking his head. ‘That can’t be right, I’ve seen them-’

‘Seen them what, concomitant?’

It was too late to lie, Dreadaeleon knew the instant he saw the subtle, scrutinising narrowing of the Librarian’s eye. It would have seemed a good time to tell everything about the red stone, how it drained him of his power, how it had tainted his body, how he, too, had broken the Laws by using it.

That might have been a matter to discuss when there were decidedly less flaming-eyed wizards approaching, however.

Truly, aside from an added slowness to his step, Sheraptus looked no worse for wear as he strode toward them. Of course, Dreadaeleon thought, that’s probably just how he always moves, all slow and confident, the asshole.

‘I find myself running out of things to learn about your breed,’ the longface said calmly.

Whether Bralston saw an opportunity in the longface’s easy stride, or was merely desperate and stubborn, he acted regardless. His hand whipped out, sending a paper crane fluttering from his grasp.

Even if Sheraptus hadn’t seen the movement, someone else had. A longface previously motionless upon the deck rose suddenly with a wordless cry of warning for her master. The paper crane found her, latched upon her throat and began to glow bright red, a tick gorging itself with blood. In one moment, it sizzled upon her flesh. In one more, she whimpered another meaningless phrase to Sheraptus.

And in less than a moment, she came undone.

Sinew unthreaded, bones disconnected, flesh segmented itself in a spray. With only a sound that resembled the pop of a bottle, the longface erupted into pieces.

They flew into the air, and stayed there.

Sheraptus, unblinking, simply waved a hand, causing the air to ripple and suspend the remains of his warrior in an eerily gentle float. Slowly, the dead stirred under his feet. Bodies trembled, weapons clattered, all rising up to float around him like bleeding flowers upon a pond.

‘Your denial of the obvious is charming,’ he whispered sharply, ‘but only to a point. To know why you do this, futile as it is, requires a certain kind of patience.’ He narrowed his stare to thin, fiery slips. ‘I dearly wish I possessed such a thing.’

At another word, an incomprehensible alien bellow, the dead came to horrific, swirling life. The bodies flailed limply, heedless of swords rending their dead flesh, as flesh, sinew and iron enveloped him in a whirlwind of purple and grey.

A hurricane of the dead, with him the merciless and unblinking eye, he began to approach the wizards.

‘Suggestions?’ Bralston asked in a way Dreadaeleon felt far too calm for the situation.

Perhaps such a calm was infectious enough to keep Dreadaeleon from hurling himself screaming overboard. Perhaps it was infectious enough to allow him to see the careful slowness to the longface’s step, his face screwed up in concentration as he strove to keep the whirlwind under control. He may be able to perform such a feat forever, but he couldn’t do it quickly.

His power isn’t limitless, then.

And that realisation made Dreadaeleon look with a clear mind to the wounded Akaneed, swaying and only now recovering from its bloodied stupor. Its agony turned to fury as it turned an angry single eye upon the deck.

‘Frost,’ he muttered, unsure to who.

‘What?’

‘Give me cold!’ he said with sudden vigour. ‘Lots of it!’

Sparing no more than a curious glance for the boy, Bralston complied. His chest grew large with breath before it came pouring out of his mouth in a great, freezing cloud. Dreadaeleon looked within it, seeing each shard of ice, each flake of frost, and the potential within them.

He extended his hands, fingers making minute, barely visible movements as he began to shape the cold within the cloud, drawing freezing particles into flakes, flakes into crystals, crystals into chunks. He could feel the wind of Sheraptus’ cyclone, the scorn of the longface’s stare as he looked upon his prey. He could feel the roar of the Akaneed rumble through the deck as the serpent lurched forward.

But the feel of cold was stronger, kept him focused as he melded chunks together, breaking them down and rejoining them in an instant, forcing them into one immense whole. His coattails had just begun to sway from the wind of the cyclone when he finished his creation, forming the frost into a freezing blue spear the size of a large hog.

And with a thrust of his hands and a shouted word, he let it fly.

Flakes tailing behind it, the icicle fled through the sky, screeching against the night. The Akaneed had just opened its mouth to let out a thundering howl when the freezing spear’s wailing flight was punctuated with a gut-wrenching sound.

Dreadaeleon watched with more glee than was probably appropriate as the spear punched through the back of the creature’s head, its red-stained tip thrusting out through blue flesh. He held his breath as the Akaneed swayed, first away from the ship, teetered precariously as it seemed likely to fall back into the ocean, and then …

His eyes widened, heart raced.

‘Move,’ he said.

‘Agreed,’ Bralston confirmed, seeing the same thing.

Dreadaeleon felt himself seized by powerful hands as the Librarian wrapped his arms about his torso. He then felt the sensation of his feet leaving the deck as Bralston’s coat became wings, pulling them both aloft.

From above, the boy beamed as his plan took shape. The joy he derived from Sheraptus’ scowl was compounded for the sheer fact that the longface’s eyes were upon him.

And not on the immense weight of a dead, serpentine column that came thundering down on his ship.

Dreadaeleon thought he might break out cackling when the longface turned about in time to see it.

Whatever happened next was lost in a crash of waves and the thunder of splinters as the Akaneed’s head smashing down upon the deck like a blue comet, punching through the wood, ploughing through the hull, vanishing beneath the waves that rose up to claim the ship.

‘Well done, concomitant,’ Bralston said.

‘That probably did it,’ Dreadaeleon said, smirking to himself as he watched the corpse of the ship groan and begin to sink. ‘He’s dead.’

‘We must assume so, for lack of any better information.’

‘Then let’s go down there and be certain.’

‘When the Laws are violated, there are no certainties.’

‘What do we do now, then?’

‘The Venarium will want a report,’ Bralston replied. ‘My orders,’ he paused, ‘our orders will dictate the next course of action, my immediate discretionary input accounted for.’

‘We won, then,’ Dreadaeleon whispered. ‘Or … wait, there was something I was supposed to do, wasn’t there?’

‘There were others on the ship, I believe. I see them back on the beach,’ Bralston replied. ‘Associates?’

‘Yes, but there were …’ Dreadaeleon shook his head. ‘It’s still hard to think.’

‘There were tremendous amounts of energies released tonight, more than most members are equipped to handle. Take some pride in the fact that you are still conscious, if not totally aware, concomitant.’

‘Right …’ Dreadaeleon nodded. ‘Right, I feel …’

That phrase lingered on the night wind as Bralston swept about, leather wings flapping and bearing the two wizards towards the shore, neither of them taking any note of a pair of solemn blue eyes staring at them from a great wooden corpse.

‘I guess,’ Lenk whispered, ‘that’s that.’

Through the groan of wood, the splintering of the ship’s ribs and the roar of great, gushing wounds filling with salt, he could hear a reply.

‘You’re surprised?’

Was the night cold or hot, he wondered? Should he feel as warm as he did at the sound inside his head?

‘I … came for them, didn’t I? I came for her. And she just-’

‘Left you. But it wasn’t just her.’

‘No, they all did, didn’t they?’

‘Distractions.’ The night turned freezing. ‘As we already knew.’

‘I remember … I trusted them, once, didn’t I? Towards the end there, I was enjoying their company. We were going to go back to the mainland together. Things were going to be all right, weren’t they?’

‘Not your fate.’

‘Not our duty.’

‘I suppose not.’

Water was seeping up around him, licking at his boots. The mast behind him started to groan; its foundations shattered, it protested once, then came crashing down to smash into the ship’s cabin. The world was crumbling beneath him and he stood facing the cold darkness below, alone.

‘So what now?’ he asked.

‘We kill.’

‘It ends.’

‘Conflict.’

‘Tell me,’ the voice, fever-hot whispered. ‘How far has killing gotten you?’

‘Do not listen,’ another, bone-cold, protested.

‘All fighting ends eventually.’ Fire-hot. ‘And by the end, what have you got but a heap of corpses? No one left to speak to, to lay your head upon, and it grows so heavy …’

‘Trickery. Lies.’ Snow-cold. ‘We have survived before. We survive, always.’

‘You’ve been killing for so long, fighting for so long. Even when you had the option to leave, you turned to fighting, and this is where it has brought you: alone, abandoned but for voices in your head. It’s time to listen to reason. It’s time to give up. It’s over.’

An inferno.

‘Ignore. Do not listen. Survive.’

A mild chill.

His hands fell to his side, sword from his hands, clattering to the drowning deck. The air turned to iron in his lungs, forced him to his knees. The water was not as cold as he expected, rising up around him and embracing him, a thousand tiny, lapping little hands, welcoming him into their fold, assuring him that they would never abandon him.

‘Rest now. Your wounds are great. Your head is heavy. You’ve done enough.’

A blanket of shadow, warm and comforting, fell over him, bidding his eyes close, bidding him to ignore the pain in his shoulder. He felt numb of his own volition, burrowing into his own body, leaving the rest of him senseless to a pair of massive hands being laid gently upon his shoulder.

‘You’ve fought so hard and for nothing. Let this be the end.’

He felt the fingers on his face, but could not feel the cold of the palms that pressed against either side of his head. The water was up to his waist now, the shadow engulfing him completely. Soon it would be over. Soon it would end.

And there would be no more pain.

‘NOT OUR TIME.’

Blood cold, brain frozen, muscles spasmed. His sword came to his hand, arm flew from his shoulder, found flesh and bit deeply. The screams were a disharmonic chorus, ringing from within and without a head that boiled and a body that froze.

He leapt to his feet, turned around.

And they were everywhere.

Bone-white hands, grasping railings and hauling up glistening hairless bodies onto the deck. Rivers of flesh pouring out from the companionway, glistening black eyes wide and needle-filled mouths gasping. Boiling out of the ship’s wounds, knotted clots of skin and teeth on salty, dark blood.

And among the frogmen, their masters walked. Three of the Abysmyths dominated the rapidly sinking deck, striding over their charges on skeletal black legs, pulling their emaciated bodies through the splintered wood. And before him, a great ebon tree leaking sap, the demon clutched the wound at its flank that Lenk’s sword had carved. Its vast, empty eyes strove to convey agony, just as its reaching, webbed claw strove to find Lenk’s throat.

‘Mother give me patience for the weak of heart,’ it croaked through a drowning voice. ‘I do what they cannot, through Your will.’

‘SURVIVE.’

Advice or command, it was all that the voice told him, and it was all he needed.

The webbed claw grasped the air where his head had been as he darted low and swung his sword up, driving it into the creature’s spear-thin midsection. It ate a messy feast, ichor dribbling from its metal maw and chewing through ribs as the blade and its wielder ignored the screams of the dying.

And yet, Lenk’s brain was set ablaze with another wailing scream.

‘STOP IT!’

As fervent and fiery as the command was, Lenk fought against it. When the voice’s words were not obeyed, it lashed out, searing his brain and boiling the blood in his temples. He staggered, rather than darted away, from the towering demon as it collapsed to its massive knees and then landed face-first in the water.

A wall of pale white flesh greeted him, broken only by the four wide white eyes that stared at him from above. The frogmen pressed toward him, feral hisses slithering from their gaping, needle-lined mouths, webbed glistening hands outreached. The Abysmyths towering over them picked their way carefully towards him, gurgling in the voices of men long claimed by the sea.

‘Absolution in submission,’ one of them croaked. ‘Atonement in acceptance.’

‘Mercy at the Shepherd’s crook,’ the other one said. ‘You cannot continue like this, lamb, wallowing in despair and in doubt.’

‘Mother bids us,’ the frogmen echoed in twisted, echoing harmony. ‘The Prophet commands us. All for you.’

They reached for him with free hands, clenched bone knives in the other. The Abysmyths’ jaws gaped, webbed claws open as if to invite him to get in. He saw his death reflected in every black, glossy stare and his life vanishing down every gaping gullet.

And, with no other plan, he heard the voice that spoke on freezing tongues.

‘Kill.’

And he obeyed.

He lunged forward, swinging the blade as he did. It gorged itself, cleaving through rubbery white flesh and spilling fluids into the water indiscriminately. Those frogmen that fell he used as stepping stones across the drowning deck, cleaving into more and more still as he made his way towards the railing, ignoring the fever-hot voice screeching at him.

‘PLEASE! THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING! SPARE THEM!’

They knotted at the railing, preventing him from hurling himself over before he could reach it. He didn’t care; there would be more of them under the water, anyway, in their element. His target was closer, taller and decidedly darker.

The Abysmyth reached for him, its four-jointed arm extending to snatch him from the deck in an ooze-covered claw. He ducked low beneath it, wrapped his arm about it and lashed out with his sword, gnashing at the creature’s shoulder. Its arm flailed with a shriek, pulling him up and over its skeletal body.

He bit back the pain in his shoulder and his head alike as he scrambled across the demon’s body, narrowly avoiding its many jagged teeth as he grabbed at the loose folds of leathery skin in its throat and swung himself onto its back. His sword went up, a fervent scream echoing through his head.

‘DON’T YOU TOUCH MY CHILDREN!’

It came down again.

The pain was agonising, the shrieks of the Abysmyth and the one in his skull making his ears ring. But he drove the blade into the creature’s back again and again, forcing it as deep as he could atop his precarious perch. Such a task only became harder as the creature flung itself into a flailing frenzy, swinging its arms in an attempt to remove the silver parasite from its back and succeeding only in smashing away those frogmen that rushed to its aid.

‘I tried! I tried!’ it wailed as it flailed wildly with one arm and clutched at its blossoming wounds with another. ‘Mother, I tried! But he won’t listen! He’s hurting me! It hurts!’

‘STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!’ the voice shrieked, pounding on his skull with fiery fists and sending waves of burning pain through his head.

He clung to the beast for as long as he could, despite the pain, but it took only another breath for him to feel the grasping water again. When he could see through the pain, he saw the deck vanished completely, swallowed by the rising tide. The frogmen stood calmly, their black eyes fixed on him as their heads slowly slipped beneath the water, glittering like onyxes even as their white flesh disappeared.

‘Survive,’ the voice whispered frigidly.

Between the two voices, there was no room in his head for contemplation about how infeasible such a command was quickly becoming. There was no room left for anything but a compulsion that pulled his eyes to the side, to the sole wooden salvation.

Blackened and splintering as it might have been, the sloping mast reached out like a pleading hand, the ship’s last, desperate attempt to keep above water. Fleeting as any salvation might have been, Lenk leapt for it anyway, leaving his demonic mount to sink beneath the waves.

It was far away, only growing smaller as it continued to slide under the water. He swam in a violent frenzy, kicking up froth as he struggled to bite back the pain in his shoulder and hold onto his sword as he did. Still, beneath his body, he could feel the presence of eyes staring, arms reaching.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something. A soft, blue light pulsing beneath the waves in a trio of azure heartbeats moved steadily towards him. Through the waves, through the pain, he could hear the whispers as they drew closer.

‘Noescapenoescapenoescapenoescape …’

‘Mercyathandmercyisheremercyforall …’

‘SheknowsSheseesShesympathisesgiveingiveingiveingivein giveingivein …’

‘No!’ the voice and he spoke as one as he found the mast and pulled himself out of the water, tumbling and facing the black water below.

The Abysmyth came rising up, its white eyes wide and stark in the gloom as it crept out, black claw glistening, reaching out of the water. He swung at it, the sword heavier in his hand than it had been, the pain in his limbs more pronounced. The beast accepted the blow, gurgling from below as it hauled the rest of its body onto the mast as he scrambled backwards.

The frogmen behind it moved with a similar inevitable purpose, staring at the blood-slick blade that had already seen its brethren, its masters spilt upon salt, without fear. They boiled up behind the Abysmyth, climbing over its body, onto the mast, reaching their webbed hands for Lenk.

He could feel the fear in his eyes, if not his head. He could see his wide stare reflected in the blade’s face. He could feel the blood seeping out of his shoulder, the fire searing his skull. What he couldn’t feel was the numbness, the callous cold that had swept over him and seized control before and delivered him. The voice was shrieking still, but it was faint, fading, disappearing behind a veil of fire and drowning in a sea of darkness.

He was alone. Abandoned.

‘Your song is ending, lamb,’ the Abysmyth croaked, reaching for him once again. ‘Fleeting sounds and errant voices offer no sanctuary. Things made of paper flesh and wooden bones provide no redemption.’

‘Forsakenforsakenforsaken …’

‘Abandonedabandonedabandoned …’

‘Noonenothingnobodyleftleftleft …’

‘But Mother hears you,’ the Abysmyth said, its eyes growing wider at the mention. ‘Mother wishes you to hear Her, to know what we know, to feel what we feel. Let Her speak. Let the pain end. Let the sinful thought end.’ Its claw reached out not to seize, but to offer, to beckon. ‘Let yourself hear.’

‘I … no …’ For lack of thought to do anything else, for lack of voice to say anything better, he shook his burning head. ‘I can’t … I can’t.’

‘Nolongeryourchoice …’

‘Nolongeranychoice …’

‘Letushelpyou …’

He heard the water rip apart beneath him, an eruption of froth at his back. He managed to see them in glimpses: soft lips within gaping needle jaws, bulging black eyes set in bulbous grey heads, long grey stalks of flesh pulsing with soft blue light. He managed to feel them as they wrapped scrawny grey claws around him, coiled eel-like tails about him, pressed withered breasts against his body.

He managed to scream only once before the mast shattered under their weight and they pulled him below.

Drowning wasn’t so bad.

Lenk absently wondered what the fuss was all about, really, as he continued to drift, pulled lower by liquid hands. The water was not as cold as it looked, enveloping him in a gentle warmth. It wasn’t as dark as he had suspected it would be, either. The creatures saw to that.

To call them ‘demons’ seemed a little insulting. Demons were twisted beings, foul things that found the natural world intolerable. These creatures, circling the waters far above him, their azure lights forming a bright halo, did not look so twisted. They were emaciated, true, with their bulbous heads at odds with their bony torsos, their slithering eel tails in place of legs. Below the surface of the water, though, they looked delicate instead of underfed, graceful instead of writhing.

And their whispering had become song.

He could hear it more clearly the deeper he drifted: lilting, resonating, wordless songs that carried through water and skin, seeping into him. They sang everything at once, lullabies and dirges, love and agony. It was a familiar song, one he had heard before. But he could not think of where, could not think of anything. With the song in his ears, there was no room left for any other sound. He found comfort in that. He found peace in the deep.

So much so that he didn’t know he shouldn’t be able to breathe.

That didn’t seem so important, though. There was no fear in the warm, welcoming depths, for drowning or for the corpses that sank around him. Down here, the anger was erased from the netherlings’ long faces, their eyes open and tranquil as they sank softly, shards of the ship drifting around them like unassembled coffins. Down here, the creatures that swam around him, with their black eyes and white skins, didn’t seem so menacing.

Down here, for the first time in weeks, he felt no fear.

‘Enjoying yourself?’

The voices came from nowhere, clear as the water itself. He caught a glimpse in the shadows surrounding him as something swam at the edges of the halo of light. A grey hide shifted, an axe-like fin tail swept through the water, manes of copper and black wafted like kelp in the water.

He remembered the Deepshriek.

She appeared. No, he reminded himself, it’s not a she. Rather, a face appeared, a soft and milk-white oval, framed by long and silky hair the colour of fire. Its eyes were golden and glittering above soft lips set in a frown. It drifted closer to Lenk and he saw the rest of it, the long grey stalk that served as its body snaking into the darkness.

Another head emerged, black hair lost in shadow, attached to an identical stalk. They circled him, as the hulking grey-skinned fish that the stalks crowned circled him. There was another stalk, hanging limp and bereft of a head. He remembered there had been another head. He remembered taking it.

He remembered the Deepshriek wanted to kill him for that.

That thought prompted the realisation of his lungs working. That realisation prompted his question.

‘Why am I alive?’

‘There was a time when sky and sea were not the petty rivals they are today,’ the Deepshriek answered in disjointed chorus. ‘They shared all. We remember that time. Ulbecetonth remembers that time.’ Their eyes narrowed to four thin slits. ‘This is Her domain.’

‘No, that wasn’t what I meant. Why am I not dead?’

‘Not because of us,’ the creature said. ‘We wanted you to die.’ The heads snaked around him, golden scowls and bared fangs. ‘You took our head. You destroyed our temple. You took the tome. You ruined everything. We wanted you to drown, to die, to be eaten by tiny little fish over a thousand years.’

‘And yet … here we are,’ he said, no room in the depths for fear.

‘We were overruled.’

‘By whom?’

The heads glanced at each other, then at Lenk, then through Lenk. He felt himself turning, spinning gently in the halo as unseen hands turned him upside down to face the sea floor. He stared for a moment and saw nothing.

And then, he saw teeth.

He tried to count them at a glance, absently, and found the task tremendous enough to make his head hurt. Rows upon rows of them opened, splitting the endless sandy floor into a tremendous smile.

‘Lenk.’ They loosed a voice, deep and feminine. ‘Hello.’

He stared into the void between them, vast and endless.

‘Hello,’ he replied, ‘Ulbecetonth.’

It laughed. No, he thought, it’s a she. And her voice was far more pleasant and matronly than a demon’s ought to be, he decided. Then again, he only knew the one. It was a comforting warmth, a blanket of sound that soothed the ache in his head, banished chill from his body.

He remembered this voice.

‘You’re not real, are you?’ he asked the teeth. ‘You’re in my head, just like your voice was.’

‘Voices inside your head can be entirely real,’ Ulbecetonth replied. ‘Have you not learned this by now?’

‘It’s simply a form of madness.’

‘If you hear voices, you’re mad. If you talk back, it’s something far worse.’

‘Point,’ he replied. ‘So are you real, then? Or am I dead?’ He glanced around the shadows. ‘Is this-?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘This is a far too pleasant to be hell; your hell, anyway. Murderers of children go to far darker, far deeper places.’

‘I have killed no-’

‘I told you to stop,’ the teeth said, twisting into a frown. ‘I begged you to spare my children. You killed them, regardless. Both of you.’

‘There was only one of me.’

‘There is never only one of you.’

He took in a deep breath that he should not have been able to.

‘You’ve heard it, then?’

‘Many times,’ she replied. ‘I remember your voice well. Both of them. I heard them many times during the war that cast my family into shadow. I heard them on blades that were driven into my children’s flesh. I heard them on flames that burned my followers alive in their sacred places. When I heard them in your head again …’

The teeth snapped shut with the sound of thunder, sending his bones rattling. The echo lasted for an age, after which it took another for him to muster the nerve to speak.

‘Then I ask again, why am I alive?’

‘Pity, mostly,’ Ulbecetonth said. ‘I have seen your thoughts, your desires, your cruelties and your pains. I have seen what you have. I have seen what you want. I know that you will never have it and it moved me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You do,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to, though. We both know this. We both know you desire something resembling peace: sinful earth to put your feet on, blasphemous fire to warm your hands by, a decaying thing of tainted breath and aging flesh to call your own. But not just any flesh …’

‘I’ve heard this rhetoric before,’ he snapped back, finding resolve somewhere within himself. ‘They say that I’m mad to want her.’

‘And we have established that you are not mad,’ she replied smoothly. ‘You are something worse, and that is why you cannot have-’

‘Her?’

‘Any of it. Your earth will always be soaked in blood. Your fire will always carry the scent of death. There will be many things made of flesh that you call your own, but they will all die, and before they do, they will look into your eyes and see what I have heard in your head.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘You don’t want to admit it. I cannot blame you. Nor can my conscience let you cling to harmful delusion.’

In his mind flashed the ship, the fire, his companions. He saw the dragonman who had leapt into the water after sparing him a glance. He saw the wizard who took off without even looking in his direction. He didn’t see the rogue and the priestess, for they never so much as looked at him before they disappeared. Those were fleeting, though.

The eyes, the emerald stare that had seeped into his, and then turned away …

That image lingered.

‘She left me,’ he whispered. ‘She looked into my eyes … and left me to die.’

‘It hurts. I know.’ Ulbecetonth’s voice brimmed with sympathy, sounding as though she might be on the verge of tears if she were more than just teeth. ‘To see those who you once loved betray you, to know the sorrow that comes with abandonment. I’ve seen the fear grow inside you. I know the times you felt like weeping and could not. I wept for you, despite your countless sins against me. I saw your grief and your sorrow and knew I could not give you the death you deserved. Not now.’

‘What?’ he asked, shaking the images from his eyes.

‘I am offering you a generosity,’ Ulbecetonth said. ‘Return to your world of petty sea and envious earth. Forget about my children, as surely as we will forget about you. Go elsewhere and cling to fire and stone and whatever flesh makes you happy. Find someone else to kill. Your voice will be satisfied all the same.

‘Between the longfaces and the Shen,’ she continued, ‘I have far too many enemies for my liking. The green heathens are an ancient enemy. The purple ones serve a foe older still. I have no need or wish to worry about a misguided creature with misguided desires. Take my offer. Leave these waters. I will not try to stop you. I will never again speak your name if I can help it. You need never feel the anguish you felt tonight again. All you need do … is leave.’

‘I can’t leave,’ he whispered, shaking his head. ‘There’s more to do. The tome …’

‘Will be safe, its terrible knowledge far from any who would use it for ill.’

‘In your hands?’ he asked. ‘That’s not right. Your Abysmyths-’

‘My children,’ she snapped back, ‘are without their mother. They long for family, for my influence. They seek to use the book to return me to their embrace. Afterwards, we will have no further use for it or for bloodshed. Let us live in peace beneath the waves. Forget about us.’

‘All you want … is your family?’

‘What does any mother want?’

‘But Miron said-’

‘PRIESTS LIE.’

The ocean quaked. Sand stirred below; light fled above. The song of the creatures died. The swimming frogmen vanished into engulfing shadows. Corpses fell like lead; wood fell upon them in cairns. Lenk felt his breath draw tight in his chest, unseen fire searing his body.

‘Priests send children to die, condemn them to death, sit too high for the ashes of the burned to reach them and wear hoods to mute the screaming.’ The teeth twisted, gnashed, roared. ‘Priests betrayed me. Betrayed you.’

‘Betrayed me? How? I don’t-’

‘NO.’ The ocean boiled around him, the comforting warmth turning horrendously hot. ‘No more explanations. No more answers. No matter what they call me, I am still a mother. My pity spares you this once. But remember this, you tiny little thing: This is my world. You have a place in it only as long as I will it.’

And with that, his breath was robbed from him. His lungs seized up, throat closed as it fought to keep out the water that flooded his mouth. He clenched at his neck, started thrashing desperately for air that was far too far above him now.

The teeth parted, loosing a long, low bellow, a command in a language far too old for mortal ears to hear. The seas obeyed, rising up to drive Lenk towards the surface. Struggling to hold his breath, he watched the teeth grow faint as he was sent hurtling above.

And yet, her voice only grew louder.

‘A final kindness, mortal. Follow the ice to see what I tried so hard to protect you from. Follow it … Follow that wickedness inside your head and realise that I was only trying to protect you from yourself and everything else. This is all I can offer you. Happiness is far out of your reach. Truth and survival is all you can hope for. Take them while you can.’

In the darkness below, two great golden eyes opened and stared at him with hate.

‘Before I take them back.’