The Southwind Saga (Book 3): Flood Tide

by Kovacs, Jase

  The cannon room... I remember a shaft in the corner of that room, going straight down. We're just below that level... it would make sense they wouldn't keep the ammunition with the cannon, right? So the whole place didn't go up if the cannon room was hit.

  I guess so.

  So where's that ammunition?

  I like the way you think.

  It is only a few steps down to where I find a passage running off the stairs. I close my eyes and imagine the whole complex.

  Stop dragging your heels – let's go.

  The tunnel only runs for a few metres before it ends in a small room. A long steel bench runs along the wall, stacked with a half dozen large cylinders, each a hand span in diameter and three long. Their fueses are missing and their paint faded but they are clearly artillery shells. A track runs up the wall and disappears up through a hole in the roof.

  You can stop smirking. It's unbecoming.

  I'm feeling good about being right – so sue me.

  So they send the shells up the gun from here?

  Yeah, look at this.

  A neat row of metal cones, each smaller than my fist, sit on the bench. There are several boxes stacked under the table. Another track disappears through a hole in the floor. I pick up one of the cones and examine with my flashlight. It is tarnished to a dirty green and several holes near its tip show where an arming pin has been removed.

  Is this what I think it is?

  I think so. The unfused shells came up this track from the magazine below. The shells were armed here and then sent up to the main gun. That way there weren’t armed shells in the magazine, and they didn’t need to keep heaps of fused shells by the cannon.

  Yeah. Just one thing. You're handling fuses that are nearly a century old.

  Ahem. Good point.

  I carefully place the fuse back on the table and try to ignore the hot flush that climbs my spine as Katie glares at me, shocked by my casual thoughtlessness.

  Shall we try to find the bottom of this elevator?

  Good idea. Try not to blow us up, though, okay?

  A strange mix of chanting and normal work noises coming from the dock, as the masalai and cultists there go about their business. The stairs keep descending. I follow them until the twisting tunnel abruptly ends in a T junction.

  Which way Holmes?

  I picture my mental map of the base. It's almost complete – there were a few branching tunnels above that I've yet to explore but now I'm certain that the passage to the right will lead me below the arming room and the cannon room, to where I imagine the magazine must be.

  But instead I find myself turning to the left to the tunnel that leads below my cell.

  Don’t we want to go the other way?

  As if on cue, a long, drawn out moan drifts from passage. It is the sound of a creature driven beyond rational thought by pain. In that moan I can hear the faint traces of the man who begged for water as he burned. There is no sentience in his moan now. Instead it is the sound of an animal that has discovered that the worst pain is not found in the snapping jaws of a steel trap. It is the realisation that the only escape is to gnaw off your own leg.

  Matty, this is a bad idea.

  Name the last time I had a good one.

  The tunnel descends in a corkscrew. I try to keep my heart under control as I imagine a masalai lunging out of the darkness. I've been in this position a hundred times before: exploring a strange dark place where monsters hide. The difference is this time I don't have my trusty rifle or even a blade to defend myself. Just a faltering old flashlight.

  The tunnel floor shimmers and moves and I think for a second it's an effect of the stress or the overwhelming exhaustion. But then I realise the illusion is actually real – the tunnel is flooded ankle deep. I step into the water and gasp.

  What? Cold?

  Warm! Like a bath...

  Wow, how could water under a volcano ever be warm?

  I raise a handful of water in my cupped hand.

  Uh, yeah. Remember you were peeing down that hole a—

  Shut up, Katie.

  I sniff the water and gag. It stinks of salt and sulphur.

  What have you been eating, girl?

  The moaning comes again. It touches me in the primitive place of my mind where the flight-or-fight instinct resides, and my skin lifts in goosebumps.

  Before I lose my nerve, I slosh forward and turn the corner. The passage descends, and the water comes up to my thighs. I lift my hand to light the small room.

  The thing chained to the table turns its head to look at the light. It is the shape of a human but that’s where the similarity ends. It lies on its back half submerged in water. Its face is puffy and white and streams of blood pour from its eyes, ears, mouth and nose. Its clothes are torn to rags. Its slick skin bulges like a sack full of snakes. It strains against the chains that bind it at the ankle and wrist, and it screams, "The light! I can't bear the pain! It burns me!"

  Instinctively, I drop my hand and plunge the room into shadows. I can't tell if I did it to spare the unfortunate creature or if it was so I didn't have to look at it any longer. But the darkness offers no respite from its screams. "Help me! Help me, please! I can't bear this pain. Things are moving inside of me. Eating me alive!"

  The creature's puffy face and distended body is unrecognisable. But its silver hair flopped off to one side, exposing a bald dome. If I was able to deny his identity, now something breaks through his pain and he screams, "Matty, I know it's you! Please, help me! Save me from them! Save me from them—"

  His screaming is going to bring the Tribe down on us!

  I rush forward, blind, my hands out. The water comes up to my waist and there is a sudden sharp pain as my shin barks a hard ledge. He’s tied down to a submerged table. The water is uncomfortably hot around him. My touch calms him. His scream cuts off mid breath, and I feel the tension go out of his body. His skin is hot and supple, as if it wasn't properly anchored to his body and something strange writhes beneath his skin.

  "Matty, is that really you?" His voice sounds almost normal. "Am I imagining this?"

  "It's me."

  "I'm burning, Matty." He speaks calmly now. But slowly, in a dislocated manner as if he was describing something he once dreamed and now can only half remember. "I saw the Dark Star, Matty. I spoke to the one who comes. He filled me with secrets. He filled me with fire. But the water does nothing! Nothing can cool me. You're here to save me, aren't you?"

  "Michael, I can't..."

  "You must. Or I'll scream and scream—"

  "Okay. Just be quiet. I need to put the light on though."

  "I can't bear it."

  "I need to see, to free these chains."

  "I'll scream!"

  "And then they'll have me, and we'll both be fucked, won't we? So shut up for once in your life."

  I try not to look at him when the torch comes back on. Instead I follow the nearest chain to the edge of the table. He moans and turns his head away. Something slides under the skin around his neck and I repress a shudder. The chains are bunched up around a long thin piece of metal; I untwist it and pull out a crowbar. They had used it to tighten the chains, so he could not rise out of the water.

  You can't be serious.

  I can't leave him here.

  Like fun you can't. He's gone. Look at him. His jaw is growing out. His mouth is full of new teeth. He is being remade. He's becoming a masalai.

  This is different. Something more. He's alive but infected with something...

  And you're going to free him?

  "Why are you waiting, Matty?" He turns to me, and his blood filled eyes are both heartbreakingly earnest and utterly alien at the same time. "Release that catch... let me be free."

  "I can't, Michael. I won't leave you here. But I can't take you now."

  "What?" His elastic skin slides over his skull as his strange new jaw drops open in confusion. Row upon row of teeth spout like antler coral. His voice rises in panic. "Yo
u... you fucking... you fucking bitch!"

  Suddenly, I am sweating at the heat pouring off Michael. He arches his back and strains against the slackened chains, and the water that sloshes off him is so hot that I step back. His thrashing fills the air with spray.

  "I knew it!" Rueben appears in the far corridor. He is naked to the waist and his chest is a mottled eruption of angry wounds puckered like lips. The buckshot wounds are sealed with hard scabs and look as if they are weeks, not days, old. His eyes shimmer with pale rage. He reaches over his shoulder and draws his thin sword from the sheath strapped across his back. "I told him not to trust you! I told him to kill you."

  I step away from the table, where Michael thrashes like a fish thrown in a bucket. I have the torch in my left hand, and I keep the crowbar low. The water swirls around my legs, and I realise there is a gentle current flowing down the corridor. "He said I was free to move around."

  "You're not special." Rueben sweeps his sword left and right as he approaches so that water sprays around him as if he was a ship. "You know nothing. Do you know what would have happened if you had freed Michael? You would have denied him his Ascension. You would have cast him into the fire." I can hear years of frustration and indignity in his voice. “It is not your place to deny him!"

  "It's a gift to Ascend?"

  He freezes. His blade is out, pointed at me, and his white hair lies slick over his skull like a helmet. The torch flickers and fades, and his tattoos crawl across his skin like corpse worms. "Ascension is a divine blessing."

  "And you are not worthy. You who have served him so well, who has killed so many in his name. Why did the villagers have to die?"

  "Which ones?"

  "That whole village!"

  "No, I mean which village?"

  I stare in horror at his smirk. Whenever I think I have found the depths of these people's depravity... "You're a monster."

  "These are monstrous times. If they died at my hand, it was because they served out of fear, not love. They were not—"

  He is cut off by a throat-rending scream from Michael. He arches off the table, the slackened chains shifting beneath him. Rueben blanches as Michael sinks under the water. "He's loose?! How did—"

  I don't give Rueben any notice. I rush at him, swinging the crowbar up to catch him under his good arm. Fear ripples across his face as he sees the crowbar in my hand and realises the threat.

  I would have had him. I would have hit his forearm hard enough to break it. If we had been fighting on dry land. But I'm wading through water, and I can't get close to him fast enough. He has his sword out in a block before I have closed half the distance. I step left and point the crowbar at him, mimicking him. I remember now how fast he moved when I hit him with my shotgun back in the village, and I realise I have made a terrible mistake.

  "You stupid woman. Do you know what you have done?" He spits out the words, each one a poisoned barb. "You have condemned him! The ascension generates intense heat! They must—"

  I lunge forward, smashing his guard with the crowbar. His sword goes wide, and I continue my strike. He darts to his left. The water slows him down as well, but still he moves so much faster than I.

  My neck is open to his blade, and I twist to bring the crowbar up. But too late, far too late. The blade comes slicing in and I think of my mother frying breadfruit on Voodoo while my sister sings a melody in French.

  I feel a hairline pain on my shoulder, as if someone had drawn the edge of a sheet of paper over my bone. He pulled the blow. He shudders with an animal revulsion as he moves back and to the right. I step left, the crowbar up against his next attack.

  "You can't kill me, is that it? Not without pissing off your boss." I can't help my mocking tone, but I feel like I've earned it. "How are you going to stop me if you can't kill me?"

  "I can't kill you.” He shrugs.“But I can hurt you plenty."

  He comes again, a whirling storm of blade strokes flinging blinding sprays of water that send me stumbling backwards. The crowbar rings as I deflect attacks faster than I can see them coming, and I realise that he is not trying to get past my guard. The bastard is just playing with me.

  I trip over something as I step back and the torch goes flying. The last thing I see before the light goes out is the wicked polished edge of his sword coming in, and I take the crowbar in both hands to stop this blow, knowing as I do so that I will never see the next attack coming.

  But I do. A pale blue fire fills the water. The water swirling around our legs is alive with bioluminescence emitted by microscopic organisms. It's stronger than any I have seen before; it cloaks our legs with phosphorescence bright enough that I can read the frustration on Rueben's face as he swings at me again and again.

  Beyond him is a brightening silhouette that must be Michael. He is balled up in a foetal position underwater and the phosphorescence auras him with starfire.

  My arms scream as I deflect Rueben's blows. His feral grin tells me it is just a game, his attacks just slow enough that I can see them coming. I know that any minute he will get bored and then he will hurt me.

  Michael unwinds himself and stands. The water cascades off his skin but still he glows. In fact, he brightens. His body itself emits light, an orange glow like that rising off lava. The new colour casts our shadows against the wall and Rueben pauses his attack. His smug grin falls as Michael climbs onto the table.

  Michael rips the last stitches of clothing from his body, and I see skin tear too. His muscles writhe like mating snakes as they shift and change within him into something new. Light spills from his wounds and his eyes and his mouth. Steam swathes him as water boils.

  He speaks slowly. "I see it all now. I’ve been taken by it. Used to build something different. Alien. It slept between the stars. Until chance brought it to earth. It is in every part of me. But part of me remain. The spirit always remains. God. Places. I will not let it take me. I am a man."

  Michael spreads his arms wide and leaps. Light pours from him as the heat within him spikes. His scream of rage matches Rueben's scream of fear as the one-armed man springs away. But Michael is too fast for him. He tackles Rueben as Michael's incandescent skin sloughs off in sheets of fire.

  They are between me and the entrance. The passage behind me is the escape. I turn and run, water sloshing as I force myself from the room filled with blinding light. The smell of burnt meat fills the air. A splash and a long hiss. I look back. Boiling water and steam. Bubbling light, like a sinking flare. I remember the masalai, flung from Excelsior's deck by Enzo’s tack, burning as it sank.

  Water will not quench Michael's flames.

  I'm sobbing, for breath and for release. My crowbar is up and out, as if it could fend off what I just saw.

  A one-armed silhouette backed by the flames fills the corridor. Its shape; the body and skull horribly scraped, hair gone, skin a riot of blisters. A thin gleam of fire in his hand.

  I turn and run.

  He comes after me, screeching a nonsensical stream of rage. The corridor twists and turns, a fissure in the earth, a crack in a volcano.

  Behind me he screams. Harsh scrapes when he drags his sword across rock.

  Light ahead. Oh god, I pray, let it be an exit. Let it be daylight. Let this be my escape.

  I turn the corridor and stop. The crowbar dips, and I slump into the water as the strength goes out of my legs.

  A fluorescent lantern hangs from a spike driven into the wall. Facing me are a dozen masalai. They cluster around the dead end of the corridor where they have been digging at the rock with iron bars and poles. They stare at me, dead-eyed and slack jawed, like neutered drones. They paused in their work when Rueben left them. Torpor. Now they turn to me, a dozen monsters turning as one, as they hear their master bellowing promises of torture.

  I have to head off Rueben, before he can compel them to attack. Fighting every instinct in my body, I put my back to the masalai.

  Rueben is beyond games. I get a brief glimpse of the damag
e Michael has wrought. The entire left side of Rueben's face is gone. His eye is a leaking socket. His cheek gleams with naked skull, and I see his teeth and his jawbone. His left side is burned down to his ribs. He swings the sword at me with his burnt ruin of an arm.

  Even as a cinder, he is more powerful than I. His blow sends my crowbar spinning away. I throw myself back in time for his reversed swing to open a gash across my collar bone; an inch closer and it would have been my neck.

  As it is, I trip and fall into the water. He is beyond taunts and accusations now. He steps forward and lifts his blade high. His wounds must be fatal. But not fast enough to save me. All the hatred he has for me, for women, for life, is held in that one eye of his.

  This time I don't pray. I don't remember my family or mourn their loss. I don't wish things could have been different or regret that I'm to be robbed of a life. The opportunity to grow stolen from me.

  Instead I struggle to my feet, so he will not have the satisfaction of killing me on my knees.

  The sword kisses my sternum and stops. Frozen in the air. Rueben’s eye widens in shock as the massive hand around his elbow squeezes and crushes his bones like twigs. His mouth opens in a silent scream.

  Another giant hand drops onto his head from behind. Long fingers wrap around his face; thumb and little finger on his ruined cheeks, forefinger and ring finger hooking into eye sockets as if they were holding a ball.

  Then the hand jerks back and up and Rueben's head goes with it, silent except a spurt of arterial blood and a muted sigh as his body slumps into the water.

  Behind me the masalai stir and murmur. But I don't care about the monsters at my back. Instead I feel my world open up, and I fall forward into insanity.

  The Green Lord looks at the head as if he holds the secrets of time. And then he shrugs and drops Rueben. For the first time I see the Green Lord properly, without his cloak of smoke and shadow. I see the shape of his jaw beneath the tumours; the glint of his eyes, a familiar knowing amusement as context is revealed.