“Can we deal you in, Captain?” Tiberius asked.
“I don’t like poker.”
“Neither do I,” Mort(e) said. He spread his cards out, revealing a diamond, a heart, a club, and two spades.
“Wait, you were supposed to give me a chance to throw in,” Tiberius said.
“I wasn’t going to win. This game has nothing to do with skill. It’s all based on the cards you draw.”
“It’s about bluffing. Even if you have a bad hand, you can bluff me into folding.”
“It’s a stupid game.”
They went back and forth, with Tiberius haranguing Mort(e) about quitting too soon. “It’s not a stupid game!” he said. “It’s about life! You play the cards you’ve been dealt!”
“Socks, give it a rest,” Culdesac said. That usually shut him up.
The kettle began to whistle. Tiberius took it from the embers and set it on the grass. Mort(e) pulled two mugs from his rucksack, along with a metal strainer. On the other side of the crate, Culdesac noticed a bowl with a smooth rock inside, filled with freshly ground coffee.
“Did you bring the crates so you can brew some of this stuff?” Culdesac asked.
“We wanted to try it, yes,” Tiberius said. He scooped the grounds with the strainer. Mort(e) poured the hot water through it and into the mugs.
“You won’t like it,” Culdesac said.
“I wanted to try it anyway. Besides, we thought you liked it.”
Culdesac could no longer remember if he did nor did not. “It’ll keep you up all night.”
“That’s fine. We wanted to watch.” He offered Culdesac a cup. The bobcat accepted.
Another set of thudding noises rumbled across the hills. Bah-boom. Closer this time. The fires stretched out farther, creating another sunset.
“We should be down there,” Mort(e) said.
“No,” Culdesac said. “We did our job. Let the Alphas do theirs.”
“Did you get a good look at what they were doing?”
“I saw enough.”
“I’d like to see a quarantine,” Tiberius said. “I want do know how they do it.”
“No you don’t.”
Their mugs filled, the three cats clinked the cups together.
“Did the humans toast with coffee?” Tiberius asked.
“Who cares?”
“Good point.”
“Should we do the usual toast?” Mort(e) asked. He seemed so eager that Culdesac could not say no.
“Of course,” the captain said. “To those who could not join us.”
Murmur.
Luna.
Seljuk.
Nox.
The coffee scorched its way to his stomach, like ants tearing through the forest.
Mort(e) and Tiberius immediately spit their drinks into the dirt.
“Choke me, what is this shit?” Tiberius said.
“If you like it black, it means you’re psychotic,” Culdesac said, taking another sip.
“I’m perfectly sane then. Ugh, I have to wash out my cup now. Where’s that wine we found?”
“It’s in Logan’s cave,” Mort(e) said.
Tiberius left them, grumbling that he needed a drink of something that did not taste like a dog’s ass.
“A dog’s ass?” Mort(e) said.
“You could try it with sugar,” Culdesac said.
“Waste of sugar,” Tiberius said over his shoulder.
For Culdesac, the coffee lost all flavor. It might as well have been hot water. A general numbness crept over him, relieving his stiff joints, his aching head, his empty stomach. Something changed in him, lifting him away from this world so that he could gaze at it from afar. Nothing could hurt him. The Queen plucked him from the mud to make him more than an animal. She lifted him up once again, only this time she watched as he did it on his own. Nothing would lead him astray ever again. Nothing would silence her voice in his mind.
“Are you okay, Captain?” Mort(e) asked.
“I’m fine, I’m home.”
“Did you find her?”
Culdesac turned to his Number One. The cat’s face glowed orange from the distant fires.
“Sorry, sir,” Mort(e) said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I found her. But she’s gone.” He pointed to the smoke rising, blackening the clouds. “It’s all gone.”
Mort(e) nodded. “I was wondering. Do you think the Change didn’t work on those people? Or did it change them in the wrong way?”
“It affects everyone differently.”
“What I mean is: those people were so devoted to their old masters. The Change made us smarter. But maybe it also enhanced our capacity to love. For better or worse, I suppose.”
Mort(e) had a point. But Culdesac didn’t like it. “I don’t think so,” he said. Mort(e) was smart enough to drop it. Before long, the housecat excused himself, probably to seek a more fruitful conversation with Tiberius over a glass of wine.
Under a purple void, with the hills blackening to shadows all around him, Culdesac sat on the crate and watched the flames devour the forest. The cup grew cold in his hands, and still he stared, until his eyes grew dry and the wind carried the hint of smoke. Another enemy outpost destroyed, although—in typical human fashion—it took part of the natural landscape with it. The thudding noises quieted, reduced to a few random gunshots and tank volleys. On the horizon, an orange explosion blossomed so bright that it lit up the surrounding forest. Culdesac could see the texture of the leaves. A few of the trees collapsed, launching embers like newborn stars. The past—his past, the last remnants of the person he used to be—finally burned away, charred to ash, scraped clean from the earth to make way for new stalks to burst from the soil. In time, it would be as if the old forest had never been there.
When the sun rose again, he would lead the Red Sphinx into the west. Into the future that the Queen promised them.
Continue reading for a preview of D’Arc,
coming in 2017 from Soho Press.
Chapter One
The Story of Taalik
When the darkness passed over the water, Taalik dreamt of the temple again. A temple far beyond the seas, ruled by an ancient queen who went to war with a race of monsters. In the dream, Taalik washed ashore on a beach at nighttime. A mere fish, unable to breathe, he slapped his tail on the sharp rocks until he felt the scales cracking. His fins strained as he tried to return to the water. His lidless eye froze stiff in its socket. And then, he rose from the sand on newly formed limbs, like a crab. The claws sprouted underneath him. He opened his mouth and splayed out his gills, and the air passed through. He did not fear the light and the wind. He did not scramble back to the lapping waves, to the muted blue haze where he was born. Instead, he stood upright, no longer weightless but still strong, defying the gravity that pulled his body to the earth. He marched toward the temple—a giant mound of dirt crawling with strange creatures, each with six legs, heavily armored bodies, mouths like the claws of a lobster. Soldiers bred for killing. They worked in unison, moving as Taalik’s people did, many individuals forming a whole. The creatures stood in rows on each side of him. Their antennae grazed him as he walked by, inspecting his scales, his fins. His body continued to change with each step he took. The soldiers admired his new shape, with his segmented legs, and a flexible shell that protected his spine, and tentacles that reached out from underneath, four new arms that could grasp or crush. Here, he was no mere animal, but something more, something his people would worship, something his enemies would learn to fear.
Inside the temple, he found the Queen surrounded by her children. He waited for her to speak, and soon realized that she did not have to. He understood the message ever since that first dream, and for every dream that followed. Taalik would rule, as the Queen did. There would be a new era of peace to wa
sh away the millennia of bloodshed. No longer would his people slip into the depths of Cold Trench while watching out for predators. No longer would they see their children snatched away. They would learn, and adapt. Others would join them. Those who did not would perish. Soon, the deep would no longer hold the children of Taalik. His people would rise from the water and find new worlds to conquer.
Or, they would die. The Queen made him understand the starkness of it. There would be no circles of life anymore. Instead, there would be one current through the dark water, leading to conquest or extinction. Life or death. And to secure life, they would not run. They would have to kill.
Taalik kept his eyes closed as he listened for the Queen’s voice rumbling through the water. Orak, his Prime, floated next to him. Ever since the first revelation, she knew to leave him alone at times like this. The Queen spoke to him only when she wanted to. Even after he opened his eyes and drifted there, Orak waited. The others hovered behind her. They followed her lead. She was the first to convert, the first to mate with Taalik, the first to follow the current with him. Orak kept the others in line, reminding them of their place, but attending to their needs as well, helping to protect the eggs and rear the hatchlings. She enforced Taalik’s orders, even when they went against her counsel. Taalik owed her his life. All the Sarcops did.
Taalik and his people waited under the Lip, the vein of rock that jutted out into Cold Trench, offering shelter from the predators who swam above. This refuge would not hold forever. Their enemies searched for them, driven mad with fear of this new species. Taalik tried to make peace, even ceding territory to those who claimed it as their own. But some creatures, the sharks and other bony fish, would not relent. They would never hear the Queen’s song. They would never accept that the world began, rather than ended, at the surface.
Does she speak to you today, my Egg? Orak asked.
He left her waiting too long. Even Orak’s enormous patience had limits, especially with the family huddled under the Lip, the food running out. A fight had broken out the day before. Orak punished the unruly ones by ordering the soldiers to feed on their eggs. They had already uprooted the nurseries and hauled them to this desolate place. Feeding on the unborn would lighten the load, and strengthen the ones bred for war.
The Queen is silent this day, my Prime, Taalik said.
A shudder in the water. Taalik gazed into the slit above, where the Lip extended across this narrow stretch of Cold Trench. In the sliver of light he saw them, the fleet of sharks, white bellied, tails waving in unison. At the lead, fatter than the others, was the one Taalik called Graydeath. He recognized the freshly healed gash on the shark’s belly, courtesy of Taalik’s claw. Graydeath managed to bite it off in their last encounter. The darkness passed over the water forty times before the limb fully regenerated. The other Sarcops watched the healing in amazement, and declared that no one, not even the ocean’s greatest shark, could kill the Queen’s chosen one.
They smell us, Orak said.
We smell them, Taalik replied.
No enemy had ever penetrated this far into their territory, least of all an army of sharks on patrol. An act of war. It meant that the scouts Taalik dispatched had most likely been killed. He ordered them to map the shoreline, and to find all of the shallows where his people would have the advantage. But the scouts also served as bait, drawing attention away from the Sarcops as they moved their young ones under the Lip. They die for us, my Egg, Orak told him later. Now we live for them.
Taalik watched the fleet passing overhead. He waited for the procession to end. It did not. It would not. Sharks of every breed crossed his line of sight, as thick as a bed of eels in some places. Mouths began where rear fins ended. In their rage, these solitary creatures banded together to fight a common enemy. The sharks baited him. They wanted the Sarcops to emerge and attack from the rear so that they could swoop around, encircle the strongest ones, and then descend upon the nest to destroy the eggs. Taalik saw it unfold before him, a vision planted by the Queen herself: Cold Trench clouded with blood. The torn membranes of eggs carried away by the current. Graydeath devouring the younglings while his followers waited for him to finish, not daring interrupt his victory meal lest they join it.
Summon the Juggernauts, Taalik said.
Orak emitted a clicking sound, followed by three chirps—the signal that alerted the soldier caste. The Juggernauts formed their phalanx, with Orak as the tip of the spear.
Every year, when they hibernated, the Sarcops dreamt of the Queen and her empire. And when they awoke, the Queen bestowed upon them new gifts. A language. A philosophy. Until then, their entire existence as a school of fish revolved around fear. Fear of others, of both darkness and light, of the unknown. After the Queen’s revelation, and the miracles that followed, a calm determination set in. The Sarcops would not merely react to the environment. They would reshape it as they pleased. Soon their bodies changed along with their minds, as they did in Taalik’s dream. First, they sprouted limbs. Then their armored plating, making them resemble the Queen’s ferocious daughters. Their mouths and throats changed. Before long, the sounds they could make matched all the images and words in their rapidly evolving brains. And then, slithering from their backs, a row of tentacles that allowed them to manipulate the world around them. Only the most loyal Sarcops advanced far enough to earn the distinction of Juggernaut alongside Taalik. The rest changed in other ways: their senses improved, their teeth sharpened, their fins became weapons. The agile Shoots could swarm their prey. The slender Redmouths could bite into their opponent and twist their bodies, pulling away flesh and bone in a whirlpool of blood. The crablike Spikes could mimic the ocean floor, setting a trap for enemies who strayed too close. Though the Juggernauts formed the vanguard, all the Sarcops knew how to fight. All would have the chance to prove themselves worthy.
Taalik told his troops that they would follow him under the Lip at full speed. They would overtake the fleet at the northern end of the crevasse, near the water’s edge. There, Taalik would kill Graydeath in front of everyone. No more hiding. Today their enemies would learn what the Sarcops could do.
Taalik called for Zirsk and Asha, his third and seventh mates, who carried eggs in their pouches. When he confronted Graydeath, these two would release their eggs. Doing so would distract the sharks, who saw only the food in front of their faces. Orak watched them closely as they listened, ready to pounce on any sign of disapproval. This proved unnecessary, for Taalik’s mates agreed. As a consolation for their pending sacrifice, Taalik assured them that they would recover some of the young. We will cut them from the bellies of dead sharks, he said. The young ones will have a story to tell.
Taalik twisted away from his soldiers and headed north, using the rocky Lip for cover while keeping an eye on the movement above. He felt Orak’s presence, slightly behind him. She could lead if he died. But he would live. The Queen still had so much to show him.
Cold Trench grew shallower. The cover of the Lip gave way to open water, where the sharks blotted out the light piercing the surface. Taalik ascended, faster than the others, homing in on Graydeath. He felt so tiny in the expanse. The ground rising behind him blocked any hope for escape.
The water shivered as the sharks sensed movement. Graydeath aimed his snout at the intruder. His mouth split in half, a red pit of jagged teeth. Scars from numerous battles left deep divots in his skin. A severed claw still punctured his dorsal fin, a permanent reminder of some creature that died trying to fight the sharks.
Taalik charged at him, claws unsheathed, tentacles reaching out. They collided, a sound like boulders tumbling into the trench. Taalik wedged the jaw open. Tumbling and twisting, Graydeath pulled free from Taalik’s grip and clamped his teeth at the root of one of his tentacles. Only by holding onto the mouth could Taalik keep the shark from shearing off the limb at the base. Blood leaked from the puncture wounds, driving Graydeath to a new realm of delirium.
Taalik tried to pluck out the eye, but Graydeath squirmed his face out of reach, using his mouth as a shield. The shark’s momentum dragged Taalik away from the battle, away from Cold Trench, and toward the shallows where Taalik would not be able to escape.
Taalik let him do it. Graydeath, sensing victory, thrashed again, letting go of the wounded tentacle and twisting his snout toward Taalik’s head. Taalik jammed his tentacles into both gills. He could see the suckers poking into the shark’s mouth. With his claws, he held the jaw open, gripping so tightly that some of the teeth broke off like old seashells. He pulled the shark toward land, toward the edge of the known world. They crashed onto a bed of rocks, kicking up dust and debris. A primitive creature, Graydeath nevertheless sensed the violation of the natural order that awaited him at the surface. Desperate, he tried to buck free of his opponent. A wave caught them, slamming them into the earth. From here, Taalik could stand. And when he did, he broke free of the water. And even with the monster still trying to tear his head off, Taalik saw the new world, the land of the Queen: a golden patch of fine sand stretching from one end to the other, anchoring a blue dome.
He held his breath as he dragged the shark out of the foamy waves. Taalik’s body grew heavy, as if a giant claw tried to press him under the water where he belonged. The shark’s eyes shimmered under the piercing light, stunned at the impossibility of it all. The Queen called everyone to this place, though only a few would prove worthy. Graydeath, a king of the deep, writhed in agony. No water would rush through his gills ever again. His enormous eye caked in sand, the shark trembled as life finally seeped out of his body.
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