Gray waited for a while, sitting back down.
‘Who are you?’ he asked eventually.
‘Most people, they ask what,’ she replied slowly.
Gray smiled to himself, and relaxed a little for the first time.
‘Would you like to look upon my face?’
‘No offense, but I’d rather not,’ Gray said.
‘Clever young man. Clever, clever.’
Gray had answered honestly, and now he wondered what would have happened if he had said yes. Something bad, probably. Again, Adri would’ve known.
‘I am that which lives in every peepal tree,’ she said then. ‘I knot the branches and feed on what feeds the tree. I eat the men who come with axe and saw.’ She paused. ‘You have been very kind to me, young one. Great kindness is always rewarded. When you are in great trouble, find my tree. Call out to me. I will come.’
Gray nodded. There was another rustle, and then she spoke no more. Gray wondered what the last bit was about—it seemed to him like a bor, a boon like the ones in the stories of old. He had heard of tree spirits, of djinns that lived in trees, jealously guarding them, preying on passers-by, but this creature, she had been something else. As dawn came, and Gray’s courage was fully replenished, it seemed to him like a very strange encounter. When you are in great trouble, she had said. He was already in great trouble, always in great trouble. Perhaps he should have said something. He shook his head, and did not mention the incident to the others when they awoke.
First light revealed a forest before them and nothing else. Fayne was quick to climb to the top of the peepal tree for a better view. Gray watched the assassin nervously, but he came down unharmed, probably the daylight. He had seen the city of Zaleb Khadd and it was close, a couple hours walk at most.
While they heated up some food, Zabrielle reached into her bag and withdrew her secret purchase from Frozen Bombay—three hunting knives with sheathes and belts. She threw them one each.
Fayne drew the knife immediately, spinning it in a practiced palm. It was a beautiful weapon, doubled edged and sharp, glimmering in the early light. Gray, however, did not understand the sudden significance of the weapons until Zabrielle spoke.
‘The blades are silver,’ she said. ‘It will kill lobos. Young one, if things go beyond negotiation—’
Gray nodded. ‘You have my permission to kill the Lich.’ He paused in thought. ‘He was never really a father to me.’
‘Hard decisions come with time, eternal time that promises to heal all wounds,’ Zabrielle said suddenly. ‘Wounds, liar, they do not heal, they only close.’
‘Though I hope things won’t come to that,’ Gray said, remembering Melas’ words. The Lich has not forgiven you.
They made their way through the forest and towards the city. Fayne admitted he hadn’t been to Zaleb Hel before, and they were wary as they walked, but there was no sign of the lobos anywhere. A bird called out in the early morning—Gray smiled hearing the tweets—and strange two-legged creatures hopped away as they approached. The two promised hours passed without conversation and incident. When they got their first glimpse of the city, Gray stopped and gaped. Zaleb Khadd stood in the distance, surrounded by the forest, a white city of rocks and towers. It was the city from Gray’s dream, the city where he had heard the slow, mournful song, where he had seen the ivory ring.
There were about twelve towers that they could count, spread out over a large area, with a gigantic courtyard of the same white stone in the middle. There were large white rocks strewn around the land, but no buildings; nothing except the towers. The white caught the rare sunlight and shone peacefully. It did not look like a cursed city.
‘Can you smell lobos?’ Gray asked Zabrielle.
‘No,’ she replied.
‘Good. Perhaps we can find the Forgotten Door before they smell us.’
The courtyard seemed like a trap. Gray voiced his thoughts and Fayne affirmed. Too much of an open space. There might be snipers in the towers, lobos among the rocks. Then again, there might not be anyone here, Gray thought. They had heard no howls last night. One thing he knew was that lobos howled, ambush be damned.
‘Zaleb Khadd is supposed to be a city,’ Zabrielle whispered as they crept forward. ‘One cannot see any buildings.’
‘We should check all the towers before entering the square,’ Fayne said.
The grass under their feet gave way to white stone as they slowly advanced towards the first tower, the courtyard beyond it. A little depression in the ground—they stepped down and climbed up again, and then Gray froze.
‘What is it?’ Zabrielle asked.
‘Look, look down,’ Gray murmured.
The depression they had stepped into wasn’t natural. It was a footprint, a giant footprint in the white stone, at least fifteen feet long. Gray stared, horrified, at the scale of it, at the greater dip of the heel and the clear demarcations of the toes.
‘What the hell is this?’ he hissed.
Zabrielle bent down and gently touched the ground. ‘They say this is an old city, belonging to old men.’
‘Men? What sort of giants were they?’
Fayne had lost interest in the footprint already. He observed the tower keenly, now that they were so close, noticing how there were no windows, no holes in the stone, no crow’s nest at the top. It was a solid piece of marble, more pillar than tower.
‘Don’t think there are snipers,’ he muttered.
‘Forget the snipers!’ Gray said. ‘What made this? What if it comes out? How can we fight something this large?’
‘The print is not recent,’ Zabrielle said, looking at the small plants growing in the cracks. ‘Perhaps whatever made this is now dead.’
‘That’s one big perhaps,’ Gray said.
There were no other footprints, just the single one. Gray noted the force it must have taken to cave in the stone like that; he did not want to meet the owner of the foot. They headed towards the tower again, slowly, weapons drawn, and then past it. The courtyard was made of the same white stone with a matte, dusty finish, gathering a curious white dust. The floor was a lattice of rectangular stones, lines crisscrossing all the way to the very end; had there been black stones, it would have looked like a warped chessboard.
Gray thought furiously. The Forgotten Door. Neither Fayne nor Zabrielle knew where the door was, but they needed to find it before something happened. They were stepping onto the courtyard now, challenging their invisible ambushers. They inched their way across the courtyard, the giant towers on all sides looking upon them like sentinels. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. Zabrielle did not smell anything, only the white dust on the stones, a curious new odour. This dust was like chalk, and the occasional gust of wind made it blow across the stones lightly as they walked. Zabrielle spied something then, and she bent down to inspect the ground silently. Gray saw it too, a rectangular stone whose borders seemed darker than the rest.
‘A loose stone, might be a passageway,’ Gray said.
Zabrielle nodded and felt around the stone. No switch, no hidden lever, nothing. She tried to dig her long nails into its sides, but there was no space, not a crack or crevice—the stone fit into the others around it perfectly, no difference except for the coppery edges. They carried on, and soon saw another similar stone, then another.
They slowly walked to the middle of the courtyard, finding another stone in the dead centre. They stood there, looking around, not knowing what to do.
Gray had never liked the apartment much. He had no one to play with, Maya seemed to prefer books to action figures. Mother, mother. A fleeting face, a face no longer remembered. She used to play with him, making up stories about his toy wars and complicating hide-and-seek with more rules. Father, he never used to sleep with mother. Gray noticed that when he went to his friend’s house to stay overnight. His friend’s parents slept together, on the same bed, the same mattress. Gray had found that odd; he had tried to make fun of his friend, but he got shouted at. His
parents were the freaks if they did not sleep together. Husbands slept beside wives, it was common knowledge.
Gray went to his mother and asked why father slept in his own room. Your father is different, Gray. We are a little different from the others. It’s what makes us special. But both of us, we love you and your sister, we love each other. There are mothers and fathers who do sleep together but they know nothing of love. You are lucky . . . we all are, as a family.
Father had always locked his room. Gray wondered with all his curiosity what father did in there, but he never got to know. Then he lost interest and it became fact and life carried on as he and his sister grew up, fighting amongst themselves all the time. It was when Gray was older that he found the door ajar. One day.
He had crept into his father’s room. There was nothing there. The walls were blank, unpainted. Then he had looked down at the floor. But there was no floor, only dirt beneath. Dirt, mud, the ground. And in the middle of it all, in the middle there was a hole, a long, rectangular hole. Gray slowly walked to the edge and peeped.
There was a coffin, the lid ajar. And a pillow inside.
‘TRAP! WE’VE GOT TO—’ Gray screamed, but it was too late. The stones were shifting, the select stones. A light push from within, dull scrapes, and the lids were being moved aside. Hands emerged, quickly, then bodies, all over the courtyard, all around them. They were surrounded.
Gray turned to look at the slab in the centre, at the hole. A man was climbing out of it, a muscular man dressed in light armour, his hair long and white, tied behind him in a bun. He stepped out and sat cross-legged on the ground, his scarred face downcast. Then, slowly, he looked up, directly into Gray’s eyes. Yellow, burning eyes. Those eyes.
There was a moment. A moment, a pause, father looking at son, sitting cross-legged with a contentment, a resignation, a confidence that said there was no fight. If there was to be one, it was already over. Gray had never wanted this moment to happen, he did not want to give it to his father. But the Lich took it from him.
‘Can’t believe you didn’t see this coming, kid,’ he said. A rough, careless voice, scarred like his face.
‘I should have,’ Gray said bitterly. ‘I should have.’ It’s why they call you the Lich. You sleep under the damned ground.
The men who had crawled up maintained their distance, spreading around, forming a rough perimeter. They were dressed in a similar armour, men with incredibly shaggy hair and large beards, men unkempt and wild. Zabrielle could smell them now, clearly so. Lobos, every last one of them.
‘Haven’t been around, but clearly, you have grown,’ the Lich said. ‘Looks like you’ve been hit with the ugly stick, but I can see that you’ve been in a fair few battles yourself.’ He pointed openly at Gray’s missing arm.
‘Am I getting into another one?’ Gray asked.
The Lich’s face cracked into a grin. ‘Think you’ll talk your way out of this one, kid?’ He looked at Gray’s dagger. ‘I can see not.’
Gray turned to his companions who were tense, ready. ‘You know, me and Adri are so alike,’ he said. ‘We both wanted love from our mothers, we both got selfish bastards for fathers. And at some point, we both fought these bastards.’
‘What’re you babbling about?’ the Lich asked. ‘Look at me. LOOK AT ME!’ The last part came out in a half roar, a roar not human—the Lich’s eyes flared yellow. Gray turned to look at his father, and he calmed down again.
‘What’re you doing? Playing with your food?’ Gray asked.
‘You cocky little shit,’ the Lich snarled. ‘This is a goddamn family reunion. Treat it like one.’
‘Oh, hurray, the joy,’ Gray said.
‘Why didn’t you get the blood of the wolf?’ the Lich asked. ‘You had to go and get the damn spider blood, both you and your sister—’
‘What?’ Gray asked immediately. ‘What did you say?’
‘Your mother, she never let me discipline you, both of you. Turned out to be little brats, didn’t you, talking back to your father like the fancy little schmuck you are? Didn’t get anything from me, nothing but the damn hair.’
‘I don’t remember you having this foul a mouth,’ Gray said calmly. ‘But then, I don’t remember you at all. You don’t really exist for me or Maya. And now you’re here, here to kill me. Worse, you’re here hiding behind your pack, scared of your fancy little brat son. Way to go, old man.’
‘This isn’t how you negotiate,’ Zabrielle whispered.
The Lich’s eyes were glowing. ‘Then I won’t hide anymore, will I?’ he asked.
The first transformation had been on a moonless night. They had all been asleep, but the howl had woken Gray up. He shook Maya awake. Something’s happening. I heard a dog howl. Maya loved animals too back then. It could be hurt or something. But I want you to come along. All right, let’s go. The backyard. A silhouette, a shadow. It howled in agony and joy, it bounded away as they stood in horror, transfixed. They had already seen what was to be seen. When the siblings came to their senses, Gray realised his arms were around Maya, protecting her.
He was still protecting her, Gray thought. She wasn’t here for the Lich to kill.
It took seconds for the lobos to transform. They shook their heads, reared, threw their heads back, and howled. A cacophony, as Fayne and Zabrielle looked around wildly. Fur sprouted, fangs grew, claws erupted. Seconds. They fell forward on four paws, wolves, wolves larger than wolves. Enormous in size, foaming at the mouths, coal black fur rippling in the wind, the wind now reeking of spit and blood, the matted smell of unwashed fur.
‘Kill these two,’ the Lich said. ‘My son is my business.’
All the lobos broke into loping runs. Fayne and Zabrielle drew their silver daggers, their backs to each other. A roar, and the first lobo leapt for Fayne. The assassin dodged sideways, and another lobo clawed him. The impact sent Fayne spinning, but he landed on his feet, deep gashes on his arm.
Gray knew right then they weren’t going to win. The situation was all too familiar. The dynes, the dynes in the Hive, a pack of four-legged predators in an open space, a place without cover. They were no match. Think, think, dammit. ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘I challenge you for the title of the alpha.’
The wolves froze. Fayne looked at Gray silently. The Lich grinned. ‘Oldest trick in the book, damn cliché. But you’re no lobo.’
‘But I am your son, and I have the right to challenge you,’ Gray spoke, breathing fast. ‘Or have you forgotten the story of Alamir Silver?’
The wolves, the lobos, they were moving, all around them, forming a circle, slowly, subconsciously. They snarled and growled at Zabrielle and Fayne as they moved, and Gray found himself in the most traditional of arenas, with borders of saliva and fangs. The Lich was still grinning.
‘You think me mad, trying to take you on?’ Gray asked. He was talking without sense now, without meaning. The word had been spoken, the fight was about to begin. He was not ready for this, for a one-on-one with the Lich. He would never be ready, not with one bad arm. His dreams and hopes would end as blood on these white stones, curse them. And Fayne and Zabrielle would die too, torn by the pack—Gray realised he had only played for time. Logic could not be afforded here.
‘No,’ the Lich said. ‘You got guts, kid. And after all, Alamir did kill his father.’
He lunged forward then and Gray lifted the dagger in paranoid frenzy. The Lich froze, well out of reach, and laughed. Just laughed. He started moving closer to Gray, first this way and then that, jabbing in and out near him, unarmed. Gray would lash out with the dagger whenever his father would spring, observing how light the Lich was on his feet, how incredibly fast. He was toying, playing around—and testing Gray’s reflexes.
‘Boo!’ the Lich exclaimed mere inches from Gray’s face and retreated before the swing.
Swinging the dagger around wasn’t good, Gray knew. Each swing was costing him energy, precious energy. The lack of his other arm meant he went off balance whenever he swung; h
e would stagger for a couple of steps, desperately trying to stay on his feet. He glimpsed Zabrielle’s large eyes for a moment. He thought she looked regretful.
‘I don’t even have to change for this,’ the Lich said, skipping around.
Gray was panting lightly. He sheathed the knife in a quick move and drew his shotgun. Still gasping, he pointed it towards his father.
‘Won’t kill me,’ the Lich said.
‘I know,’ Gray said, and fired both barrels. The Lich raised his arms to protect his face and took the blow. The force threw him backwards into the mass of wolves. He disappeared among the black beasts, only to emerge seconds later, his arms bleeding, large scraps of flesh gone. He approached Gray as he tried to reload, and swung.
What hit the shotgun wasn’t a human hand—it was a great wolf claw, knocking the shotgun away from Gray. When he looked at his father, he was still human, the arm was still a human arm. Lightning transformation.
‘How fast can you do that?’ Gray asked without meaning to.
‘This fast,’ the Lich said and mauled him. Gray leapt back but not quick enough—a sharp ripping sound—blood, torn clothes. Gray screamed. The Lich looked at the blood on his fingers.
‘Ta-Ta esra,’ Gray spoke softly, feeling his own chest, the lacerations there. There was no pain yet, only a faint sting.
‘What?’ the Lich asked.
‘Ta Esra Lidnem Khatsh,’ Gray mumbled. ‘Wol Hrur Esra Vern.’
Nothing happened. Gray’s eyes were not on the Lich or on his own wound anymore. His eyes were stuck on the Sadhu’s Shotgun lying a few feet away. He saw it tremble, shiver on the ground for a moment. Then it flew towards Gray in a split second, like a magnet to metal. Gray caught it and turned it on the Lich, and without reloading, fired again. This was the moment Fayne chose to pounce on the lobos with two silver daggers. Green blades materialised in mid-air as Zabrielle entered the fray.
Something flew from the barrel of the gun—Gray did not know what, his vision was beginning to fail, his legs weakening—he saw it connect with the Lich, connect with an ensuing shout, a scream. Ghost swords flew by him into the pack of lobos around, and he saw blood flying in the air. Fayne’s arm went up and plunged into the black sea. More blood flying. The lobos were roaring, roaring in ferocity and pain, green blades sticking from their black hides. The Lich was roaring and transforming. The white, the white fur, he was the only lobo with white fur, larger than the rest, larger. Then something else, a curious sound, a whistle-like something, and something else was moving across the battlefield, like liquid, like a dense black liquid flying. Gray closed his eyes as his legs buckled under him. He did not hear the shotgun clatter to the ground, he simply wished for all of it to be over, all of this that he could not understand, that he did not have the training to deal with. I saved you, Maya. Somewhere, that was good enough. Gray hit the ground hard, and saw and heard no more.
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