The Skybound Sea

TEN

The Aeons’ Gate

Reef of Dead Men (might not actually be reef name, but much more impressive sounding than whatever lizard trash they call it)

Fall. . summer? I really can’t tell anymore

I think the voice in my head might be lying to me.

And this perturbs me for a few reasons.

The big one is that I’m finding the fact that a giant red lizard who respected me enough to say my name like it wasn’t a curse being eaten alive by a giant sea snake is not as joyous an occasion as I had hoped it to be.

I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Of the many profanities I would use to describe Gariath, “reliable” was never one of them. Though he might have limited his attempts to actively murder us to the single digits, he never really gave a damn about whether we lived or died. Couple in the fact that he came with us to seek out the Shen and this paints a rather bleak picture.

Summation: a lunatic dragonman who once threatened to reverse-feed me my own lungs, who abandoned me and left me to die at several occasions-most of them recent-and who sought contact with creatures possessing a vested interest in jamming pointy things into soft parts of my anatomy is gone.

And this isn’t making me happy.

Maybe I just miss his conversation?

Or maybe the prospect of going into a forbidden island of doom from which no man has returned without the benefit of having a murderous reptile at my side is proving daunting. I mean, there certainly are giant, murderous reptiles out here. They just happen to be lurking in the mist.

Along with Gods know what else.

The mist goes on forever and the walkway goes with it. Or rather, walkways, since there are just a few more than way too damn many of them out here. Barely any of them go anywhere, most of them leading to shattered bridges, pillars whose tops are littered with bones, or shrines with statues long smashed.

I should probably be more respectful. Clearly, something happened here. Clearly, it was big. Clearly, a lot of people died and a lot of things were smashed. But I can’t help but think in terms of practicality. How are we to find anything in this? It’s like a giant web of stone built by a spider who thought it’d be much easier to simply annoy its prey to death.

We walked until nightfall. Or what I think is probably nightfall. It might also be morning. The mist won’t tell me. It doesn’t matter. I won’t be sleeping tonight.

I see them in the mist. Some of them are moving, some of them are not. There are statues there. Robed men, gods for faces, hands extended. They were on Teji, too, mounted on treads like siege engines. Here, they’re on the bows of ships. Sunken ships. Some are crashed on the pillars, some are tossed on their sides like trash, some look like they’ve been sinking into the sea for years. . centuries, probably.

Those aren’t the moving ones.

The moving ones make noise. Wailing, warbling cries in the mist, like they’re talking to each other. Not human. Not that I’ve heard. If they know we’re here, they’re not talking to us. Or not to me, anyway. I see Kataria stop and stare out there sometimes, like she’s trying to listen.

That’s when those noises stop and the other ones begin.

These ones are voices. Not the usual ones, mind. They’re. . hard to hear. Like whispers that forgot what whispers are supposed to sound like. I can’t understand them, but I can hear them. Sometimes the other way around. They are. . calling out.

Maybe they’re like us, got lost in the mist somewhere way back before language had words and are still trying to find their way out.

Maybe I should count myself lucky that I’ve only been lost for a day.

Or two days? It’s hard to keep track, what with no sleep, no sun, and the whole fear of being disemboweled in my sleep. . thing.

I should ask Kataria.

I should ask Kataria when she wakes up.

I should kill Kataria now.

It would be easier right now, when she can’t fight back, when she can’t look at me, when she can’t. .

It’s hard to think.

And I can’t think of anything else.

Voices in the head will usually do that: make a man single-minded. And I can’t help but feel angry at her, like I want to hurt her, like I should. Like the voice tells me I should.

But it doesn’t tell me that. It isn’t threatening me. It isn’t demanding I do anything. All it does is talk. .

It talks about that night on the ship. It talks about how she looked me in the eyes and left me to die. After that, everything is me.

I’ve gotten close. I’ve raised my sword. I’ve seen how my hands could fit around her neck. But every time I do, I remember why it is I wanted to cry and I think. .

. . there must be something else. Why did she abandon me? I never asked. I tried not to think about it. She never told me why. She looked me in the eyes. She left me to die.

I remember she looked sad.

And I remember the woman in my dreams, telling me it won’t stop if I kill her, telling me that I can’t listen to the voice. And then the voice starts screaming. Not talking, screaming. It tells me all about her, what she did, what I must do. And I still remember the woman and I still remember Kataria and I still want to cry and die and kill and fight and drown and sleep and never have to think again.

. . like I said, I try not to think about it. Too much.

She has to live for now. She’s got the skills for tracking and the senses for getting us out of here and to Jaga and to the tome. The tome that we need to find again. The tome that the voice wants me to find again.

No.

That I want to find.

Me.

I think.

Too hard to think.

Too hard to kill Kataria.

Should have killed Asper first.

That’d have been easier.