by Mark Hodder
“And always fighting the Blood Gods,” Clarissa said.
“Yes! The Dar’sayn made my mind very strong! I drank so much that I stopped needing it. Heh! Heh!”
“But why, Pretty Wahine? Why continue to defend the Yatsill?”
“Immersion! I went into the pool! You know, my child! You know! The same happened to you! It joins you to the Wise Ones, yes?”
“It’s true,” my companion replied. “I have never felt such a sense of belonging.”
“Heh! They shape themselves from your thoughts and memories. Of course you belong! As do I, for there is still much of me in them!”
I heard Clarissa sigh. She said, “I’ve already experienced the loss of one home. Now I feel I’m losing another. I don’t want to. How can we fight the Blood Gods?”
“I am dying,” Pretty Wahine answered. “Finally! Finally! So, my child, you must learn to do what I have done. I will show you how to use your mind to stop the demons taking the Yatsill. But we need Dar’sayn.”
“There is none.” Clarissa responded. “The Magicians have run out of it.”
“Find Yissil Froon! Always, he wanted to be the only Yatsill to drink it, and he hoards it jealously. I had to force him to release it to his fellows. He didn’t like that! No! Find him, my child, and make him give you whatever of it he has, then return to me. But don’t let him follow! No! No! And Aiden Fleischer, you must hasten to the forest to fetch more of the stuff. More Dar’sayn!”
“I won’t be parted from Clarissa!” I objected.
“She will be safe, my boy. I will protect her.”
My sword was sheathed at my side. I wrapped my fingers around its hilt. I’d developed a confidence in my aptitude with the weapon despite my inability to kill and wasn’t afraid of what was sure to be a perilous journey, but leaving my friend behind in the city was another matter entirely.
“Aiden,” Clarissa said, “this might be the only way to save New Yatsillat. If we don’t try, what will become of us? Where shall we live?”
Reluctantly, I stood. “Very well. I’ll get Dar’sayn.”
I drove an autocarriage along the base of the Mountains That Gaze Upon Phenadoor toward the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings—toward the spot where I’d arrived on Ptallaya. The Heart of Blood had by now completely cleared the horizon. Its crimson light glared down and caused everything beneath to writhe in agony—or at least that’s how it appeared, for the trees and plants had contorted into awful shapes and sprouted spines and thorns as if to defend themselves from the dreadful illumination.
Ptallaya looked exactly as I imagined Hell.
The terrain sloped up into the mountains on my left but its undulations were smooth and, so far, had presented no challenge to my vehicle apart from occasional boulders that required steering around. Wildlife had been kept at bay by the autocarriage’s loud chugging, for which I was thankful. The various beasts I’d spotted had been nasty-looking things, all claws, horns, and teeth.
At one point in the journey—now a long way behind me—I’d been disconcerted by a long stretch of hillside upon which purple pumpkin-like plants grew in abundance. They were so prevalent that it was impossible to steer around them, but to my horror, whenever I drove over one, crushing it beneath my vehicle’s wheels, the whole slope emitted a horrible shriek of agony. The vegetables, it appeared, were merely the exterior protrusions of a huge living organism that dwelled beneath the soil. For some considerable distance I was assailed by these awful screams, and the strain on my nerves, together with my attempts to avoid as many of the pumpkins as I could, exhausted me. Nevertheless, once past that horrible hillside I pushed on, and had now been travelling for such a long time without rest that I simply couldn’t stay awake any longer.
I drew the autocarriage to a halt, unfolded and clipped down its leather cover to afford me some protection from the ghastly sunshine, then made myself as comfortable as possible in the seat. I slept.
After a period of insensibility, a distant screeching brought me back to consciousness. I wiped the sleep from my eyes, looked around to see where the noise was coming from, and saw, streaming over the brow of a hill about half a mile away, a pack of ten or twelve unmistakably carnivorous animals. They were glossy black, with hard spiky exoskeletons, bulbous heads, clacking mandibles, and eight limbs apiece ending in talony digits. I recognised them instantly as Tiskeen, the species I’d once seen while approaching New Yatsillat, but transformed and no longer the harmless creatures they’d been under the yellow suns.
I hastily jumped out of the autocarriage, stepped back to its engine, and fired up the boiler. I’d left it burning gently while I slept and the mechanism was still hot, so it started immediately—which was just as well, for the Tiskeen were fast and obviously fixated upon me as their next meal. I scrambled back into the seat, pressed down on the footplate, and accelerated away with the pack in eager pursuit.
At a medium velocity, the autocarriage had navigated the terrain with little trouble, but now, as I forced it to its limits, it began to rattle and jolt with such severity that I feared it might shake itself apart, and a glance back revealed that, even at such great a speed, I wasn’t going to outrun the pack. Nor could I defend myself against so many with just a sword.
I had little choice.
For the first time in my life, I hissed a string of expletives—shocking language for a vicar!—before veering the machine around a boulder, reversing course, and speeding straight back at the oncoming beasts. They were upon me in seconds, at the very last moment splitting into two groups, with the greater number of animals attempting to dodge to the right. I yelled incoherently and yanked the tiller around. The world cartwheeled as the vehicle smashed into the bigger group, propelling me into the air. I thudded onto the ground, rolled, tottered to my feet, and pulled my sword free, turning to face the carnage.
“Not dead!” I bellowed—a defiant shout that was, I admit, tinged with surprise.
The surviving Tiskeen turned toward me and extended their mandibles, displaying irregular holes in the front of their heads—holes lined with multiple rows of long, sharp teeth.
“Oh,” I said. “Damn.”
Just as I resigned myself to being eaten alive, there came a tremendous detonation. The autocarriage’s boiler erupted, spurting flame, smoke, and boiling steam. The shock wave slapped into me and sent me back down to the ground. Pieces of metal went skittering past. I curled into a ball until the clattering of falling shrapnel stopped, then quickly pushed myself up and stood with my weapon at the ready. Blood dribbled into my eyes. My ears were assailed by high-pitched squeals.
Through an expanding cloud of hot steam, I saw the vehicle lying on its side, split wide open. The broken carcasses of Tiskeen were scattered about, either hit by the machine or blasted by the subsequent explosion. Some were writhing in their death throes. Others twitched spasmodically as the last vestiges of life left them. Four had survived, though two of them were obviously mortally wounded.
I dragged a sleeve across my eyes—the blood was flowing freely down my face. I had no idea how badly hurt I was and there was no time to find out—the remaining Tiskeen were leaping at me.
“No!” I snarled. “Clarissa needs me! I’ll not fail her, you ugly brutes!”
The first beast came pouncing through the dispersing mist, its jaws and talons extended. I swung my sword into the side of its head. With a loud crunch, hot blood sprayed and the thing tumbled away, kicked, and lay still. The second was on me before I’d recovered my stance. I fell beneath it and gave a shriek of agony as its teeth sank into my right shoulder. Unable to turn my blade, I repeatedly hammered the pommel into one of the creature’s eyes.
“Get off! Get off!”
Its hold on me eased slightly. I pushed my legs up under its body and heaved it away, my clothes and skin ripping as its grip came loose. The Tiskeen was back in an instant, but not before I had time to raise the point of my sword, which caught it in the chest. Claws slashed, the cre
ature squirmed, slowed, and became still.
I heaved the dead weight to one side, stood, pulled my weapon free, staggered, and almost fell. The remaining two Tiskeen were dragging their bleeding bodies toward me. I righted myself and met them each with a swing to the head, putting as much strength behind the blade as I could muster. It was enough. They died.
Bizarrely, I giggled.
Dropping my weapon, I sank to my knees and knelt with my head bowed, blood oozing from my hair, and my breath coming in rapid and painful gasps. For a few moments, I could do nothing except cling on to consciousness. As my respiration slowed, I began to feel the pain of my wounds. A deep laceration in my scalp was bleeding profusely. Deep puncture wounds marked my shoulder and chest. There was also a chunk of flesh missing from my left thigh. A deadly lassitude was creeping over me. I knew if I gave in to it, I’d probably bleed to death while I slept. I pulled a packet of dried and salted fish—Kula’at—from my pocket, took a strip, and chewed on it to keep my mind focused, while from another pocket I retrieved a pack of medicinal herbs given to me by Clarissa. I treated my injuries.
I had killed. Unintelligent monsters, it’s true. But I had killed.
The bleeding abated. I rested and, in a semi-dazed fashion, examined the little finger of my right hand, which had by now been completely restored. Mimics they may have been, but the Yatsill obviously knew how to apply the intelligence Clarissa gave them to the resources of their own world, for no Earth medicine could match such a feat.
The temperature was increasing and a vaguely sulphurous aroma now marred Ptallaya’s lemony air. At my back, the mountains held the sea fogs at bay. In front of me, the wrecked autocarriage steamed, popped, and creaked as its split boiler settled. Behind it, the terrain rippled to the distant horizon, which shimmered in the heat.
I used the sword to lever myself upright, crossed to the vehicle, and recovered my knapsack. After slaking my thirst from a water bottle, I slung the bag over my uninjured shoulder, turned away, and started walking. What remained of the journey would be tough—I was sorely weakened and limping badly—but that didn’t concern me as much as the return trek. I was confident I could cope with the exertion and physical dangers, but in the time it would take, what would become of New Yatsillat? What would become of Clarissa?
The Forest of Indistinct Murmurings occupied either side of a shallow river—little more than a stream—that ran out of the savannah and cut through a broad valley at the northernmost end of the mountain range. To the west, the Ptoollan trees followed the watercourse until they abutted the ocean. To the East, beyond the valley, they fanned out for about seven or eight miles then rapidly thinned and gave way to open land.
Clarissa and I had arrived on Ptallaya just within the southern edge of the forest, close to where the land dipped into the valley. Despite the funk I’d been in back then, now, when I surmounted a rise and looked down at the spot, I recognised the topography and the place where we’d emerged from the trees to climb aboard the Ptall’kor.
The demolished autocarriage was many miles behind me. I was footsore and exhausted, weak from my wounds, and very hungry. There’d been little by way of fruit or berries on the barren foothills I’d chosen for my route, and the supply I’d brought with me had run out.
Twice more, animals had attacked me. They’d fallen to my blade. I’d sustained no further injuries.
Descending the incline, I reached the outermost Ptoollan trees. Since I’d last seen them, their trunks had turned black and sprouted thorns and the raised roots were now bristling with spines. Nevertheless, I was able to push my way through the barbs into the hollow space beneath one of the trees, and there curled up and instantly fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
When I next opened my eyes, I found the side of my face encrusted with blood. My head wound had reopened at some point, bleeding profusely before clotting. I sat up, crawled into the open, and stood. A wave of dizziness sent me reeling. I was in bad shape and desperately needed something to eat.
I moved deeper into the forest. The fruits had changed considerably since I was last there. Some were huge empty shells, broken wide open as if animals had removed the inner flesh, leaving just the skin to dry and calcify. Others were shrivelled and shrunken, obviously dead and rotting. The possibility that I’d travelled all this way for nothing—that there was no Dar’sayn to be milked—was too grim even to consider.
The odd murmuring that gave the forest its name was absent but I could hear, from a little way ahead, a faint sound that resembled weeping. Hoping it was being emitted by a mature fruit, I continued forward and quickly realised I was approaching the very clearing where I’d taken my first terrified steps on Ptallaya. A few moments later, I peered through a tangle of roots and saw the little glade. A creature, blue-black in colour, was squatting in the middle of it, and I knew at once it was a Zull, though this was the first living example I’d seen in close proximity. Where the Yatsill were four-legged and two-armed, the Zull was four-armed and two-legged, with what appeared to be a loose cloak of skin falling from its shoulders and attached to the back of the upper limbs. The head resembled that of an earthly ant, but four-eyed and with a complex multi-jointed set of mandibles. A white patch marked the left side of its face.
The thing was sobbing like a child.
I stepped into the open and said, in Koluwaian, “Are you hurt?”
The creature started and scrabbled backward, raising its arms as if to ward me off.
I held my hands out to show they were empty. “It’s all right. I mean no harm.”
“Wha-what? You speak, Thing?”
“I speak, and I’m not a thing, I’m a human being. Why are you weeping?”
“Because—because I have been cast out of Phenadoor, and because others of my kind have died. Look.” The Zull pointed to one of the dried fruits and I suddenly realised that it and the other shrivelled ones were the same that Colonel Momentous Spearjab’s party had taken Dar’sayn from. The larger and now empty shells, by contrast, had, as far as I knew, escaped the Yatsills’ attentions.
“Others of your kind?” Even as I asked it, the truth flashed into my mind—a terrible revelation. Reaching up to one of the gourd-like objects, I touched it and said, “Your people come out of these?”
“Yes, after we are banished from Phenadoor.”
They weren’t fruits. They were cocoons. Dar’sayn was some sort of placental fluid.
Stunned by this realisation, I stood speechlessly gazing at the Zull. Its four silvery eyes glittered as it regarded me.
“You are a curiosity,” it said.
My mouth worked silently before I was able to utter, “My—my name is Aiden Fleischer.”
“I am Gallokomas.”
I looked around me at the broken and shrunken cocoons, then back at the creature. “Why do you say you’ve been cast out of Phenadoor?”
“Because I feel it.”
“You remember being there?”
“No. I am newborn. I have no recollection of the blissful life that went before. I know only that I lived it, and now cannot, for it is forbidden to return. I must have done something very wicked to have been punished this way.”
I moved closer to the Zull and knelt beside it. I felt light-headed. My clothes were hanging in ribbons, red-stained, and my skin was smeared with dried blood.
I said, “Do not judge yourself harshly. I have learned that one should not presume evil in oneself without irrefutable evidence of it.”
“I am no longer in Phenadoor. Is that not evidence enough?”
“It is no evidence at all. Perhaps when you join with the rest of your kind, you’ll find out more about where you have come from and why you are here.”
“The rest of my kind,” Gallokomas echoed. “Yes.” He pointed to the East. “I am drawn in that direction. I think they are there.”
I nodded. “I’ve heard they live in eyries between the Shrouded Mountains and the Shelf Lands.”
“I d
o not know those places. And you, Thing—where are your people?”
I didn’t have the strength to explain Earth and space and the planets, so nodded toward the South and said simply, “There. Some distance away. A place called New Yatsillat.”
“I feel that you are anxious to return. Why did you leave it?”
Not wanting to confess that I’d come to the forest to extract Dar’sayn and unwittingly kill the Zull’s fellows, I answered with a question: “Is my anxiety so apparent?”
“I am aware of those things that are absent within you.”
“How?”
“It is obvious to me. You are joined to another of your kind and are currently lacking that one’s presence. You think of this New Yatsillat place almost as a home but lack confidence that it can offer you safety. You are uncertain and are searching for something to believe in.”
“Can you hear my thoughts, Gallokomas?”
“No. Your mind is closed but your emotions play over its surface. I understand your need and must help as best I can. I will take you to New Yatsillat.”
“You would assist a stranger?”
“Of course. Why would I not?”
“I am grateful, but it is a vast distance to walk.”
By way of reply, Gallokomas stood, the cloak of skin on his back suddenly inflated like a balloon, and he rose five feet or so above the ground.
“You propose carrying me?” I asked.
“Yes, but first we must eat. Remain here. I will return.”
He shot upward and disappeared over the treetops.
I sat and rested my head in my hands. I hadn’t yet seen a single source of Dar’sayn, and even if I had, I wouldn’t extract the liquid now I knew that, in doing so, I’d kill an intelligent being. So what would become of New Yatsillat? Without a fresh supply of Dar’sayn, could the Magicians muster strength enough to preserve themselves for the duration of the red sun’s day?
