by Mara Duryea
“Keep the Metirins close,” said Rindar. “N’Nar, with me.” He swung the Sirilith onto his back as Gilanra hefted Sibare back into her arms. Rezh and Terros took the lead once more, and they filed inside.
It was like going blind, and they held onto one another’s shoulders. Terros kept his spear out in front of him. The ground was rock under their feet. The walls were rough and narrow, and yet their steps echoed as if a void stretched around them. After an eternity, Terros’s spear point knocked against a firm barrier. He ran his hand over a wooden surface and caught onto a latch. He pulled it down and pushed against the wood.
Dim light met their eyes, and they entered a strange city. It was like a child had thrown its blocks in the air and midway to the ground, the blocks had frozen in place. Some buildings balanced on a point; others were sideways, or upside down. Some buildings bridged others together. The pale doors stained in bloody handprints were everywhere. The city floated in black smoke and glowed with eerie red light. It was like the sun filtered through forest-fire smoke, only there was no light source. The rusty odor of blood polluted the air.
“This way,” said Sibare, pointing. “All the bloodhearts ran when they saw Dad.” A small smile touched his lips. “Nobody will know we’re here.”
He led them across walkways and stairways to a door identical to all the others. Anybody could have walked past it without a second thought. Terros opened the door into a star forest. The contorted trees blocked most of the red, sunless light, rendering a carmine gloom. The branches splayed out like claws.
Terros cringed at the sight, but headed the way in. His family followed in silence. Their steps made nary a sound against the bare ground. They could feel the empty death in the air, but none more than N’Nar. The trees’ souls were gone. This whole place wasn’t real.
They hadn’t traveled very long before heavy steps thumped the ground. Terros held his hand up, and then he and Rezh sprang into the branches. Gilanra and Rindar took cover among the roots. Rindar glanced at one of the leaves near his face and realized it wasn’t star-shaped, but shredded.
N’Nar sucked in air, and Rindar glanced up. A bulbous creature lumbered through the forest. It looked like it had been skinned, or turned inside out. Its globular body rested on four huge claws. Its head was a single bloody eye. It had no discernable mouth or nose. Two muscular arms ending in armored talons touched the ground. A few strands of dark hair protruded from the top of its veined head. The creature plodded by and disappeared into the forest.
“What was that?” Terros whispered.
Rezh shook his head. “Hopefully there aren’t more.”
They climbed down and regrouped with the others.
“Hurry,” Rindar whispered.
Sibare pointed, and they broke into a jog. They passed by what seemed like the same door numerous times. Had not Sibare been leading them, they’d have thought they were going in circles. The skeletons of those unfortunate enough to wander into this trap lay everywhere. Periods seemed to drag by.
Sibare pointed to a tree. “The door’s there. Let me down.”
Gilanra did so, and Sibare grabbed a small branch among many others and twisted it down. The tree split in half with a crackling creak, revealing a black corridor similar to the one they’d entered from the ruins.
“In here,” said Sibare.
Gilanra picked him up and they ran inside. Terros found the door at the end and pushed it open. Icy wind stung his face, and he stepped into the entrance tunnel of a protective wall. Snow whipped in the the light of a mirilite orb at the end of the hallway. Beyond it was a gloomy, ruined city covered in ice and snow.
As soon as N’Nar and Rindar passed through the door, the Sirilith cried out in horror, “Dad’s being attacked!” He thrust a finger towards the city. “That way! Hurry!”
5
The Skinless Blob
Rilkin stepped away from Ikalkor and tossed away the stick he’d used to rub the lanadin into his skull. Ikalkor would wake up sooner or later.
Miranel padded to his side. “Daddy, Vijeren went to sleep.”
Rilkin smiled. He’d often thought of what he’d do if Miranel ever called him so. Would he be disgusted? Horrified? Uncomfortable? There was nothing but fuzzy. Smiling, he picked her up.
“Are you my baby?” said Rilkin.
“Um…yes.”
“And I your daddy?”
Miranel’s eyes and cheeks somehow seemed rounder. She was so short and round, with that mass of curls around her little doll face. “Yes.”
“Then I claim you as mine.” Rilkin kissed the creamy forehead. Dancing sunbeams tickled Miranel’s little frame, and she giggled.
“I will claim you, too.” She kissed Rilkin’s cheek with those tiny lips. “Can we play a game?”
“Yeah.”
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom! Rilkin jumped as the din vibrated under his feet. Pieces of the ceiling dropped, and Rilkin darted under the walkway with his baby.
“Go to Vijeren,” he said, setting her down and running to the railing.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom! The door shuddered and cracked. It toppled over onto the debris-choked floor. A gargantuan bulk without its skin squeezed into the library. Its main body rested on thick claws. The entire face was composed of one red eye. A vertical pupil sliced through its center. The creature’s teardrop head reached the top of the bookshelves.
“Rilkin,” said Vijeren sleepily. He held up the blood pendant Zhin had finished during Rilkin’s story. “It’s throbbing.”
Rilkin held his fingers to his mouth, and Vijeren slipped the pendant into his pocket. The Antminar ushered the pair back into the cul-de-sac.
“Don’t come out until I signal you,” Rilkin whispered.
Vijeren and Miranel nodded and clasped hands. As the Antiminar turned to leave the cul-de-sac, Ikalkor groaned.
“Oh, that horrid Sirilith. I knew he do this!”
The skinless blob pulsating among the aisles below caught his eye, and he scrambled to the railing. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Rilkin darted out to do he didn’t know what. Ikalkor’s fingers squeezed the railing, and he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“What is that?”
Rilkin skidded to a halt and dove back into the cul-de-sac, where he shoved Vijeren and Miranel into a corner. He blocked them with his body as the thump-thump-thump of the creature’s claws charged through the aisles and up the stairs. Ikalkor fled to the third story in hysterics.
“ZHI-I-I-I-I-N-N!” he shrieked.
The bulbous monster was quick for its girth, and dashed past the cul-de-sac where the Metirins hid. It clattered up the stairs. Rilkin seized both children’s hands and tore from the cul-de-sac.
Ikalkor screeched. “No, no, no! They on the second floor! Zhin’s sons down there!” He thought Sibare was still there, and didn’t consider N’Nar family in the least.
“Eenyet!” Rilkin spat in Vaylanian under his breath. He dragged Vijeren and Miranel down the stairs. Pulling them beneath the walkway next to the red and blue fish painting, he punched the red fish’s glass eye.
“They’re not here, Berivor,” the creature croaked.
“They might be in the vozhrith, under the stairs behind the fish painting!”
Rilkin clenched his teeth to keep from shouting vile names at his asinine brother. Throwing Miranel on his back, he and Vijeren darted into the aisles. The bulbous monstrosity hammered towards the stairs. By the time it reached the painting, its prey was crossing the library.
Vijeren stumbled behind Rilkin. The Antiminar had forgotten the N’hai had donated his blood to Sibare. The boy could faint. He hooked his arm around Vijeren’s middle and half-carried him to the door and then up the stairs.
Near the top, the creature’s voice called from below. “Rilkin…Rilkin…give me those children!”
Rilkin and Vijeren glanced at one another. How did it know the Antiminar’s name? Sunlight hit them like liquid fire. They raced across the courty
ard into the shade beyond. They hid in a clump of bushes and rocks, where they could view the reddish pot.
The creature bulged out of the stairwell, toting a whimpering Ikalkor by the neck. Rilkin’s plans to flee in the opposite direction of the monster’s course flew off the kiderrin’s back, so to speak.
He had to somehow free Ikalkor. It seemed the only thing his claws could penetrate was the creature’s eye. If he wounded it, the monster might drop Ikalkor. They could then escape. Ikalkor could scamper where he pleased. Rilkin didn’t want him near Vijeren or Miranel.
“Rilkin,” the thing called. “I have your brother.”
“Rilkin, just give them to her,” Ikalkor wailed. “They just Metirins! Zhin can always get more!”
“Stay here,” Rilkin whispered, and crept out the back of their hiding spot. He circled the courtyard until the pot stood between him and the monster. Its pinkish head swiveled back and forth above the pot. The head tilted back, and sniffing sounds issued from he didn’t know where. Whatever it was sensing for wouldn’t work, what with Ikalkor’s stench mussing the air.
Rilkin darted silently up the pot’s side, using the grooves and cracks to lodge his claws in. The sun was at zenith, keeping Rilkin’s shadow beneath him, safe from the monster’s eye. He sprang onto its head and jammed his claws against the eye. It bent in, but didn’t break. It was like scratching rubber.
A jagged grin broke across the wrinkled neck and a heavy hand snatched at his head. Gasping in shock, the Antiminar sprang back onto the pot and jumped off the other side. He tore for the shade as the creature flung Ikalkor away. It dashed after him.
“Rilkin, you’ve grown,” the thing shouted. “But so have I! You cannot blind me as you did before! Come here! I shall deliver you to Sizhirin!”
Rilkin plunged into the foliage and scrambled up the side of a fallen pillar. He lay flat on top as the monster barreled by. What did the creature mean, “as you did before?” He’d blinded many things, but never that. He hastened back to Vijeren and Miranel. The small girl threw herself into his arms as Vijeren’s muscles relaxed.
“What now?” said Vijeren.
“We get as far away from it as we can. I couldn’t blind it. The eye won’t cut.” Hooking his arm around Vijeren, Rilkin took Miranel’s hand and led them towards the canal.
“How did it know your name?” said Vijeren.
Rilkin was silent in thought, recalling the creature’s words about blinding it once more. How many things had he fought that knew his name? Not many. And of those, how many had he blinded? Two: Karijin, who could rejuvenate and was now dead. The other…a cold pit formed in his stomach. “Is Azhanya.”
Vijeren stiffened. “What? Why’s she look like that? I thought you blinded her, but she has one eye.”
“I don’t know.” Maybe he had missed one eye? No. Great Cubons, he didn’t know what a Renzhie could and couldn’t do. Maybe she’d rebuilt it. The eye looked fake.
“I saw her sniffing,” said Vijeren. “She looked right at where me and Miranel were. Can she find us like that?”
“Yeah. Keep the pendant close, or she can call you to her.” And then she would deliver Rilkin to Sizhirin. With that last thought, he knew who had taken his brother.
6
The Stitched Man
The darkness dispersed like melting frost. Zhin slowly opened his eyes. A large metal spider with a gray abdomen hung above him on a filthy stone ceiling. He glanced down at himself. A metal spider had been strapped to his chest. Metal cuffs pinned his wrists and ankles to a metal table.
“My son,” a voice like rusty hinges hissed, “you are awake.” A face constructed of nothing but gray stitches loomed over him. The eyes were milky white. Purplish ooze squeezed from the crevices between the stitches. “I have brought you home at last. All these years, I have searched for you.” He enveloped Zhin’s face in rusty-smelling hands. “The bloodhearts scoured the countries in vain. Now here you are. This mangled heart can still beat proud for what my child has become, but those days are now retired.”
“Sizhirin?” Zhin whispered.
The creature smiled. His mouth was replete with broken, blackened teeth. “My son remembers me!” Black spittle trickled from the remains of his chapped lips. “And now he shall always be with me!” Turning to a machine tangled with wires, he pulled a stained lever. The spider in the ceiling whirred to life.
Pressure squeezed Zhin’s heart, and the spider on his chest glowed red. A needle seemed to screw into his chest. Pain radiated from that needle into his bloodstream. No air would come as Zhin jerked against the metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles. A ribbon of scarlet light flowed towards the big spider in the ceiling.
Sizhirin’s limbs clicked as he sat beside the table and placed his hand on the writhing Berivor’s head. “Do not fear, my child. I shall not drain you completely, but this will have to be a weekly encounter in order to keep us a family. I should have done this years ago. I made a mistake with Karijin in letting him become a Nri Kryne. I should have blinded and crippled him instead. As a result, he ran off on his own and ended up dying. This will not be so with you.”
Zhin’s back arched as his eyes watered. Small claws seemed to be scraping at every nerve in his body. Through blurred vision, he caught sight of a man shrouded in a gray cloak, standing in a corner. The shroud hid the man’s race. He watched Sizhirin intently.
“You shall live in a small, comfortable box,” said Sizhirin, “like a beloved bauble, as you are to me. Every day, I shall take you out and look at you. You shall depend on me as you did as a child. I shall feed you, dress you, bathe you. I know the sight of the gate and so many bloodhearts will upset you, but you shall be sightless, and so you shall be happy. You shall never hurt your feet in so many travels, for I shall take the awful things away so that you may live in comfort in your box, ever relaxed, ever fed and with me.”
The spider above Zhin had become bright red.
Sizhirin sighed heavily. “Your only discomfort will be this spider, but like I said, it is to keep us as a family. You and I are family, and I will teach you what a real family is, for you do not know. And when your brother arrives, we shall be complete. Azhanya has gone to fetch him. I will break his back so that I can carry him upon mine for the rest of his days. We shall never part.”
The man in the corner clenched his hood as he turned away and vanished.
Zhin squeezed his eyes shut as more pain ripped through his veins. Azhanya had gone after Rilkin. She would discover his sons and Miranel. She would warp them into bloodhearts if she could—if Sibare wasn’t already dead. He glared at Sizhirin. Others would have fallen into despair, but his fury scorched it into nothing. He spat at Sizhirin, who retaliated and whacked him across the face. The rough hand cut Zhin’s cheek.
“You would force my hand?” Sizhirin shouted. “I brought you here to live in peace and this is how you repay me? Nevertheless, I am merciful, as a father should be! I shall take a piece of you one at a time, and let you heal in between so you will not die. This is how much I love you. I cannot lose you! In time, you will look forward to me coming to visit you!”
Sizhirin paced the room. “Do you not know what it was like to lose you? After that man in the Child City murdered me with that hammer, I was in pain, so much pain.” Sizhirin groaned. “Azhanya was blinded, but after six days, she rallied the bloodhearts. They led her to Karijin’s poor mangled body. Zhin, Zhin, you wounded him so! In the deepest cloud of pain, he sewed me up bit by bit and bestowed a new eye on your mother.”
Spit sucker, Zhin thought.
Sizhirin closed his dead eyes. “Karijin was the only one who stayed…the only one. Azhanya…” The stitched man moaned. “I am afraid we’ve grown asunder, but there is no separation. We are joined forever. Our bloodhearts attest to our union. Sometimes, I wish Gilanra were with you. I would do all in my power to regain her favor. A dear Sylex such as she would heal me, and in time, heal my heart. I loved her the first day I met her.�
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The ruined Hatrin seized Zhin’s face. “But do not think for one moment, not one moment, that I ever forgot you. Tell me, why did Karijin not inform me of you when he discovered you?” Sizhirin brushed his fingers through Zhin’s black mane. “I began to wonder when he ran out of Visseria like a madman. I sent one of my bloodhearts to follow him, and in Bellecaro, my child discovered he was chasing two N’hai boys and my own two sons. I know you killed Karijin, but I have lost one son enough, so you and your brother shall stay with me.”
Zhin’s eyes drooped as the loss of his Iskerkin blood began to take its toll. It was like he’d killed a thousand soulless at once. Sizhirin couldn’t completely drain him, though. Zhin’s organs would shut down and he’d die.
Iskerkin blood issued from the man’s actual blood. It converted into killing blood when he ran his fingers over his wrist in order to fight soulless. While a Sylex couldn’t restore blood out of thin air, she could restore Iskerkin blood. Once the Iskerkin closed his wrists, the blood would convert back to normal.
It was a tricky thing for Medicine Makers not to kill an Iskerkin when they subjected him to the spider. Iskerkin blood only worked while the donor lived. If they killed him or turned off the spider before they harvested the needed blood, everything the spider collected became ineffective. Hence, they fabricated the special blood candles during the draining process.
Since Sizhirin only needed to severely weaken Zhin, the spider wouldn’t need to be attached to him as long as, say, a Terlithin. Sizhirin switched the spider off. Zhin’s muscles loosened. He gasped as if he’d been holding his breath too long. Sizhirin unhooked the spider. Parts of it slid out of Zhin’s flesh. Sizhirin opened the bloody manacles and jerked Zhin off the table.
The Berivor shoved feebly at Sizhirin, who cuffed him in the head with a heavy fist and hooked him to his side. Zhin clutched his head, struggling to regain his equilibrium.
Sizhirin swept out of the chamber and down a winding stairwell. Zhin’s feet dragged and bumped over the stone steps. As they entered a black hall glimmering with candles, Zhin had regained some of his senses. Down a short hall to his right, he spotted an elevator flanked by two striking snakes.
