by Samuel Sykes
He shut his eyes and, as happened whenever they stayed closed for more than a moment, he saw her again. Long and limber and writhing helplessly in her bonds, the scent of her tears cloying his nostrils and the sound of her shrieking drawing his lips apart. And, again, when he began to feel the swell beneath his robe, he looked into her eyes wide with fear, into a mouth jabbering nonsensical pleas to creatures that weren’t there.
And he sensed it again.
“We never told you.”
He turned. The Gray One That Grins was close now, too close.
“We never told you what led us to seek the tome, what led us to pry open the doors of worlds like a child pulls open closets, what led to us discovering the hole that we pulled your race out of,” he hissed. “The war.”
“Between mortal and Aeon,” Sheraptus replied. “Your invisible gods made creatures that did not obey them and your mortals fought against them. They are returning and you wish for my degenerate race to handle them.”
“I did not say ‘degenerate.’ ”
“Feel free to refute the implication.”
The Gray One That Grins chose not to. “The tome’s power is in its memory. Look into its pages and you will find confirmation of any tale that emerged from the war, the horrors that demons visited upon mankind. Go further and you will find the truth that there are simply too many atrocities in any war to be held by only one side. When demon tortured mortal, when Aeon enslaved mortal, mortal struck against demon in the most vile way he knew how.
“The monoliths.”
The great, gray statues that did not stand, Sheraptus remembered. Or rather, that had not always stood. They were still and calm on the beaches of Teji: robed figures with hands outstretched, arcane holy symbols in their hoods instead of faces. But they had not always been intended to be there; one did not mount iron treads upon a statue’s base for that.
“They are a product, a refinement of centuries of hatred for the Aeons,” the Gray One That Grins whispered. “Love dulls, awe blinds, only hatred hones. The mortals hated their oppressors, Ulbecetonth and her children, with such passion that fire and steel and poison and spit were not enough. The monoliths were.”
“And what are they?” Sheraptus asked.
“Children,” the Gray One That Grins said. “Some of them, anyway. Grandfathers and teachers and midwives, whatever they might have been as Aeons before they were called demons. All of them ground down by hate, mortared in hate, chiseled with hate, and sent against their parents and grandchildren and students and patients. The demons fled before them.”
He flashed a long, macabre grin.
“What demon would not? What would terrify a demon, after all, beyond its companions, its children, and its lovers being forever imprisoned in statues in the shape of the Gods that had cursed them so?”
“The monoliths are … underscum?”
“Were. Were weapons, too. Effective ones. They terrified the demons, broke their ranks and sent their immortal minions fleeing. They gave the armies of the mortals a fighting chance, but not enough to be truly successful.
“That was when they took more from the demons they captured. They ripped something from them and put it in something more mobile, more malleable: prisons of flesh instead of stone.
“Difficult, of course. Touch the demon to the head and the vessel will not obey. Touch the demon to the heart and the vessel will die. In the end, their hatred for the demons was strong enough to refine that process, too, and they were instilled in the arm.”
He held up a long, gray limb.
“The left one.”
Sheraptus narrowed his eyes, focused again on the sooty spot, the spot too small and too neat not to be noticed amidst the passive carnage.
“And what happened?”
Sheraptus spoke softly, distracted. His eyes remained on the spot too dark, too deep, a black spot painted by a stiff brush in a trembling hand.
“Gods create. And as demons run anathema to Gods …”
A spot. Not blood. Not flesh. Not ash.
“Well,” the Gray One That Grins said. “You are looking at what used to be one of your warriors.”
“I see many,” Sheraptus said.
“You see the one I’m talking about.”
“I see no remains.”
“You see all that remains.”
“There is nothing left.”
“You sound doubtful.”
“I have never been more certain,” Sheraptus said. He swept over to the spot and traced a finger over the darkness. It did not stir, did not come off on his hand. It was a scar upon matter, upon creation. “What exists is never created, never destroyed. It changes, it alters, it flows from one form to the next, but it can never be removed entirely.”
“You are utterly certain?”
“There is no certainty. It implies that I may be wrong. This is law.”
“You break law as a matter of sport.”
He drew a long, slow circle about the spot. It did not move. It did not react. It was not affected by him, his stare, his touch at all. It used to be a living thing. One that belonged to him. And now, it was this.
The Gray One That Grins did not lie.
“Gone,” he whispered reverently. “Utterly and completely gone. And this stain could have been …”
“It was not.”
“And the only reason it wasn’t …”
“Unimportant.”
“If there is pure destruction and anathema to destruction …”
“Enough.”
He rose. He turned. The Gray One That Grins was no longer in shadow. The Gray One That Grins was standing before him.
“Your will wavers. Your doubt grows. You prepare answers to questions that began the war that we seek to end.” His teeth gnashed with every word, jagged edges fitting neatly together with a firm snap. “We, Sheraptus. We pulled you out of the Nether. We showed you the sunlight. We promise you more, so much more, if you do what we require of you.”
He turned a head without eyes toward the wound in the tower’s side. Teeth too long bared in a snarl.
“We are out of time, Sheraptus. The sky has bled. The crown of storms rests upon a fevered brow.” The Gray One That Grins made a vile sucking sound between his teeth. “He comes. And he comes for her.”
His limbs moved like a tree’s, creaking and groaning like living things dying as he raised them. Sheraptus had no idea where the object in his hand came from, from what dark shadow that clung to the Gray One That Grins’s body like clothing it had been plucked from. But it was there: a single piece, a meaningless lump of granite, still and lifeless and held perfectly between two pointed gray fingers.
Sheraptus had no eyes for it, though. Nor did he have eyes for the sensation of a thin and sickly grasp about his wrist, fingers wriggling in between his fingers and prising them apart to expose a sweat-slick and vulnerable palm. He didn’t dare look down at that.
The granite felt a leaden life in his palm, a thing that squirmed against its shell and writhed against his skin, seeking a way in. It beat like a living thing, shed warmth as though it had blood all its own. It was alive.
He had no heart, no will to do anything but hurl it away, let alone ask what it was. But amidst the many things the Gray One That Grins knew, he knew this.
“Salvation,” he whispered through his teeth, forcing Sheraptus’s fingers closed over the stone. “Not from a god.”
He slipped backward, knees groaning and feet clicking upon the stones, a man who walked in and out of nightmares like a bad thought himself.
“To Jaga. To the tome. To kill, Sheraptus. Him and her. What you were created to do.”
Sheraptus stared into the darkness. He might have indeed been alone, left only with the dying sun and the dead bodies and the echoes that had died at the sound of his associate’s voice.
Pure destruction, he thought. It was here. It was there on Teji. It was there on the ship. Amidst my warriors, amidst the overscum … inside he
r. And they are all dead.
And I am not.
He dared not think further. He dared not dwell on the reason. He dared not contemplate what the presence of pure destruction implied.
He might not have been alone.
And so he closed his eyes and turned his thoughts outward. His crown burned, the gems set inside it smoldering on his brow as something awoke inside him. It snapped in the back of his head, awoke from an electric slumber with the faintest of crackles. It slipped from him and into the air, where it traveled on a bridge from his skull.
And sought the end.
SEVEN
RITE AND REASON
So, anyway …
His wrist twitched. The blade came singing out of its hiding place, all sleek and shiny and puckering up its thin little steel lips.
What exactly are you doing, anyway? You’ve got a throat you need to open, you know. Seems a tad rude to keep her waiting.
He pulled its hidden latch, drew it back into its sheath. It disappeared with a disappointed scraping sound.
And I’d hate for her to think me rude. I also hated Bralston to think me a mass murderer. It seems reasonable that I should be allowed at least a day between murders.
He twitched and the Long, Slow Kiss came whistling out, eager and ready.
You’ve killed more in a day before, you know. Pirates, frogmen … you might not have the highest score, of course, but you’ve definitely been in the running.
He pulled it back in, silenced its scraping protest with a quiet click.
See, that’s kind of the thing: they aren’t points. Or they shouldn’t be, at least. You shouldn’t be trying to justify this. You murdered thousands, sure, but those were thousands of eyes you didn’t have to look into. This is different. These ones … hers … they’ve seen you. They know you. Too well.
Twitch. It came out.
That’s kind of what they look to you for, though, isn’t it?
Pull. It went back in.
They ask too much of you. If they knew what you’ve done—
Twitch.
And why don’t they? Oh, right. Because if you tell them, they’ll always be bringing that up whenever you’re in an argument. “Oh yeah?” they’ll say. “Well, at least I didn’t inadvertently cause the deaths of four hundred wailing children and the rapes of their mothers.” And, really, what kind of retort is there for that?
Pull.
Don’t be stupid. They’re far more likely to kill you for it. Then you’ll go to hell, where you belong, and suffer for all eternity for it.
Twitch.
Would they, though? Kataria and Gariath haven’t even heard of Cier’Djaal. They wouldn’t even care. Dreadaeleon is barely aware of an existence beyond himself. Lenk probably would take offense.
Pull.
Of course, Lenk also just tried to cauterize his own wound to see if it would hurt. Does his opinion really matter?
Twitch.
So that leaves …
He looked up. The village of Teji was quiet. The Owauku and Gonwa milled about, not paying attention to him as he sat beside the hut that held his prisoner. Not a sign of pink skin or blue robe in sight.
Huh.
Pull.
She usually comes around just as I’m thinking of her. Well, I suppose that would get a bit predictable after—
“Hey.”
Ah, there we are.
He looked up, flashing disinterest at Asper as she stood over him. “Hello.”
“The others have left,” she said. “Just about half an hour ago.”
“You didn’t try to—”
“I did. Not hard. Lenk says he should be back in a few days, assuming all goes well.”
“He just gave himself a rampaging infection and fell into babbling hysterics for the thousandth time,” Denaos said. “How could it not go well with that kind of intellect in charge?”
“He was … under stress,” she said. “I’m just glad we were there to act when we did.”
“You’re glad?”
“More than I would have been if he tried to do it on his own.”
“Well, naturally. Him acting like a feebleminded toddler must appeal strongly to whatever matronly instincts have been rattling around inside your pelvis for the past ten years.”
“Yes, I have a penchant for associating with men who act like children on a regular basis, apparently.” She glanced to the hut’s door. “Is it done, then?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m sitting out here, not covered in blood and not breathing hard. Because the she-beast inside just sighed and accepted that it was her time.”
“I assumed it would be quick. Cold-blooded murder tends to be, I’ve heard.”
“You’re right, I ought to just untie her. It’s not like she can do a lot after you ruined her arm, right?”
She turned a glower upon him. He shrugged.
“You wanted to talk about it,” he said.
“Not now,” she replied sharply. “And with you, not ever.” Her gaze returned to the hut. “Has she been given last rites?”
“Has the rampaging crazy woman that calls the Gods ‘invisible sky-creatures’ been given last rites?”
“It’s likely more apparent to those with more sense than sarcasm, but last rites doesn’t have to be all about the Gods,” she said. “She might have last words. She might have a last request.”
“She likely has both, and I guarantee that both of them consist of ‘bend over,’ ‘sword,’ and ‘jam in your rectum.’ ” He waved at the door. “By all means, though. Go crazy. Maybe she’ll repent and cover herself with the holy cloth and you two can go deliver cattle together or something.”
She split her gaze between the door and the rogue, making certain neither went wanting for contempt before she finally spat on the earth at his feet.
“I don’t waste my time,” she said, “for any man, woman, or god.”
She turned on her heel and stormed off, disappearing into the village and scattering lizardmen before her. He clicked his tongue and looked back down to his blade, feeling it twitch inside its sheath, against his wrist, trying to come out all on its own.
Lenk’s not wrong, you know, he told himself. Even if she could never lift a blade again, it’s not like she doesn’t have it coming. The same could be said of you, of course, and it would be an insult to ethics if you didn’t cut your own throat after hers.
He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath.
But that’s why Lenk told you to do it, isn’t it? Ethics are not a problem for you.
He stood and let the blade hang from his hand as he turned to the door.
Not a lot of use in denial, is there?
He paused, ear twitching. He heard Asper coming, but didn’t bother to move. She roughly shoved him aside, cursing angrily above her breath.
“Quarter of an hour,” she said. “After that, come in.”
Shove past her, he told himself. When that didn’t happen, he insisted. Go in there and open the longface’s throat in front of her. Then confess. Then get your last rites and die. When he stayed still, he cursed himself. You’re not making this easier by letting her delay you, you know. This is not a particularly big blessing.
It was not. It was just enough to permit him the will to turn about and saunter toward the village, already thinking which lizardman might still have enough good will or fear of him to part with a drink. A blessing; small, ultimately meaningless and more than a little harmful.
Denial often was.
A spark. A jolt. A quick jab with a needle, just enough to jerk her out of the day-long stupor. Just enough to speak a few short words in a language only he spoke, only she understood. They flashed across her mind and then were gone.
“About time,” she muttered.
Semnein Xhai rolled her neck, heard it return to life with a satisfying crack. She tugged at her bonds, felt them tight but weak. Her arm was mangled, but it was her arm, and its muscles twitched and creaked under her skin, hung
ry and angry and other words she didn’t know that translated to “kill them all.”
Her ears pricked up. She heard voices. Real ones, this time: the weak and airy exhales of breath of words that she hadn’t felt in her head. One voice something quiet and meek and trying to pretend it wasn’t; the overscum’s. Another voice, something cold and hard like a piece of metal; his.
His voice, hard and cold and trying to convince itself it wasn’t. His knives, unashamed and bold and everything he should have been. His feet, hurrying toward her. His hand, reaching through.
No, not his hand. Not him that came through. And, at the sight of what did come through, Xhai remembered one more word that translated to “kill.”
“You.”
Everything about the overscum leaked weakness. It seeped out of her eyes. It shook out of her trembling hands. Xhai knew this because she could sense the fear, the hesitation that came from those who thought there was more to them than decaying flesh and dying breath.
The overscum knew it as much as she did; that much was obvious by the fact that she sat herself down forcefully before the netherling. She moved with what she knew wasn’t purpose, stared with what she knew wasn’t courage.
She was lying to herself, trying to hide a weakness that she couldn’t hide behind a stare she knew wasn’t cold, a stare she offered everywhere but Xhai’s milk-white eyes. She directed the fake sternness to a purple forehead, to a long chin, to a sharp cheekbone. Never once to the eyes; purple and pink skin alike knew the facade would shatter into tiny, useless pieces.
The overscum’s bones to follow in kind.
“I am here …” Asper paused a hair too long between words. “To deliver you your last rites.”
Xhai stared blankly at her. This one wasn’t worthy of her hate.
“To permit you the opportunity,” the overscum continued, “to express remorse and penitence before myself and your—” she paused, catching a word in her throat, “—self for the sins you’ve committed and the lives you’ve stolen.”
Xhai blinked.
