by Sam Sykes
‘The lizard’s still breathing,’ Denaos noted. ‘I’d be hard pressed not to release her had she actually killed him.’ He tugged her closer, bringing his knife a little further up. ‘As it stands-’
‘STOP!’ Dreadaeleon shrieked again. ‘She hasn’t hurt them. Kataria and Gariath will both be fine!’
‘Here’s a funny fact,’ the rogue spat. ‘Even if you say something a heap of times, it doesn’t actually make it come true.’ He levelled a murderous scowl upon his captive. ‘We should kill her before she has a chance to do to us what she did to them.’
‘She won’t!’ the wizard protested.
‘Well, of course she won’t if I stick her now.’
‘I mean she won’t at all,’ the boy added hotly, ‘not if you let her go. Otherwise, she might-’
‘Not if I jam a six-finger piece of steel in her face,’ the rogue interrupted. ‘Sweet Silf, man, try to keep up.’
Dreadaeleon made a motion to protest further, but instead turned two big, brown, puppy-like eyes to Lenk, pleading.
‘Lenk, she means us no harm. You’ve got to believe me.’
‘Oh, that’s fair,’ Denaos sneered, ‘go to Lenk for aid.’ He turned to the young man. ‘The boy might have been bewitched by her. Who says his words are his own?’
‘I say that you might be an imbecile but it’s far more likely that you’re a bloodthirsty moron! She was only defending herself!’
‘She attacked us first!’
‘Gariath attacked her first!’ The boy gritted his teeth. ‘Gariath always attacks first!’ He looked to Lenk once more, eyes going so wide they might roll out of his head. ‘Lenk, please. .’
The young man remained unmoving, silent for a long moment. He glanced from the unconscious dragonman to the curled-up shict, to the creature with green hair who looked remarkably calm for a woman-fish-thing that had a knife to her throat. He only spoke when the stand-off was joined by a red-faced Asper rushing up to meet them.
‘Asper,’ he gestured with his chin, ‘have a look at Kat and Gariath. See if they’re well.’
‘What?’ she asked, breathless. ‘Who’s well? What’s happening? ’ She glanced over at the strange captive. ‘Who’s she?’
‘We’re a little busy here, Asper.’
The priestess seemed to want to argue, but had no breath for it. With a muttered curse and a wave of her hand, she stalked towards her prone companions.
‘Release her, Denaos,’ Lenk commanded. ‘Keep your knife ready, though. Gut her if she moves funny.’
‘She’s going to move funny eventually,’ the rogue grunted. ‘It’d be easier to gut her now.’
‘Just do as I say.’
With a grudging snarl, Denaos took a cautious step away, releasing the woman. Both he and Lenk kept their weapons at the ready as the young man approached the creature with a grim look in his eyes.
‘If you’ve injured anyone here,’ he uttered, ‘I’ll take your head before he has a chance to gut you.’ He flashed a threatening gaze at Dreadaeleon. ‘And if you try to stop me, Denaos will take yours.’
He let that threat hang in the air as all parties exchanged wary glances. All save the female, who merely smiled as she opened her mouth and spoke in a lyrical, reverberating tune.
‘If all death threats have been finished, I should like to solicit your aid.’
Nineteen
LOUD AND NEEDY
While all men can lie through their mouths, and a select few have a talent for lying through their eyes, no man can disguise intent evident in his buttocks.
Lenk’s grandfather had said that, or so the young man thought, and while it seemed almost insulting that he would ever find cause to recall such a morsel of wisdom, there was no denying that it was applicable.
Buttocks were firmly entrenched, steeped in tiny sand pits carved of hatred and suspicion. Only Lenk’s glare, perpetually flitting between his companions, kept them seated.
It had taken no small effort to get them there in the first place. After discerning that Kataria and Gariath were well enough, it took the strength of all mortal creatures and the possibility of an impending execution to bring their buttocks to the earth in a circle.
Ensconced between them, like a wiry silver battle line, Lenk kept his sword naked in his lap, eyes darting between his companions and the pale creature across from him.
She was a sight that demanded attention. Her features were human enough, in principle: a face filled with discernible angles, five fingers and toes, though webbed, and a long river of hair, though bright green. Her feathery gills, vaguely blue skin and the crest that occasionally rose upon the crown of her head, however, left the young man’s buttocks clenched with caution.
Yet whenever she spoke, they became uncomfortably loose.
‘I am once again asking for forgiveness.’ Her voice was audible liquid, slithering on ripples into his head and reverberating throughout. ‘Had I known you meant no harm, I would not have used my voice.’
Lenk frowned at that; before now, he hadn’t thought of a voice as a weapon. Before now, he wouldn’t have believed it could be used as one.
‘WHAT’D SHE SAY?’
He cringed at the sound of Kataria as she leaned over and yelled at him.
‘SHE APOLOGISED,’ he shouted back.
‘YEAH, SHE BETTER!’ the shict roared.
‘Apologies, again,’ the female said meekly, ‘the deafness should subside before too long.’
‘WHAT’D SHE SAY?’
‘It’s already been too long,’ Lenk muttered, waving down his companion. ‘For the moment, your apology is accepted.’ At a snort from Gariath, he added, ‘By everyone who matters, anyway.’
‘I suspect we might feel a degree more comfortable if we knew your name,’ Asper offered congenially.
‘As well as knowing whatever the hell you are,’ Denaos added, cocking his head at the female. ‘I mean, how are you even speaking right now?’
‘She has a mouth,’ Dreadaeleon muttered, rolling his eyes.
‘I mean speaking our language,’ the rogue retorted. ‘How does some kind of fish-woman-thing learn to speak the human tongue?’
‘Don’t be crude,’ Asper chastised, turning to the woman sympathetically. ‘You’re more woman than fish, aren’t you?’
‘I. .’ The female appeared to be straining to express befuddlement. ‘I am neither fish nor human, though I have spoken extensively with both in my time.’
‘So you only talk to fish.’ Denaos sighed. ‘This is going to be another of those conversations I’d rather not hear, I can tell.’
‘Then feel free to leave,’ Dreadaeleon snapped. ‘We can accomplish much more without you here.’
‘We could accomplish much more without all of you jabbering like apes.’ Lenk fixed a glower upon the female. ‘All right, then. . we know how you can speak our language, now tell us what you are.’
‘She’s a siren, obviously,’ the boy interrupted.
‘A what?’
‘Impossible,’ Denaos said with a sneer. ‘Sirens are a myth.’
‘Yesterday, so were demons,’ Dreadaeleon pointed out.
‘Demons are a force of pure destruction that want nothing more than to rip us open and eat our innards. It’s easy enough to believe such things could exist.’ The rogue shook his head. ‘Sirens are a legend to explain away navigational errors. Fish-women that lure men to their doom with deadly songs and promises of raucous, violent coitus? Unlikely.’
‘Listening to you,’ Asper sneered, ‘you’d think everything unexplained desired raucous, violent coitus.’
‘I have yet to be proven wrong.’ The rogue’s eyebrow raised appreciatively at the siren. ‘Or have I?’
‘The young lorekeeper refers to the name that humans are comfortable with calling my kind,’ the mysterious female replied fluidly. ‘I have never thought of myself as anything requiring a name, however. I am a child of the deep, born of the Sea Mother and charged to warden her waters
and protect her children.’
‘Fine job you’re doing of that,’ Gariath growled, ‘what with the giant demons prowling about.’ He reared up, rising to his feet; buttocks were tensed immediately, but remained in their seats. ‘Why are we even having this conversation? If you weren’t all so stupid, you’d see what she is.’ He levelled a claw accusingly at the crest atop her head and snarled, ‘She’s one of them.’
Lenk supposed the resemblance to the Abysmyth ought to have occurred to him earlier, as did most of his companions. Tensions rose immediately, daggers were drawn, claws were bared, and even Kataria seemed to figure out the dragonman’s accusation accurately enough to nock an arrow. Asper glanced to Lenk, wide-eyed and baffled, but even she seemed to stiffen at the declaration.
Before he could make a move to join or restrain his companions, however, Dreadaeleon acted first.
‘She. . is. . not!’
With barely more than a flicker of his fingers, he was on his feet, propelled by a burst of unseen energy beneath him. And, apparently envisioning himself as a particularly underdeveloped gallant, stepped to intervene between the woman and the dragonman. Quite unlike the vision his stand conjured up, however, the finger he levelled at Gariath, crackling with blue electricity, delivered a much more decisive message.
‘And don’t think I won’t fry you where you stand if you take one more step forwards.’
‘The only thing I don’t think is that there’ll be enough of your treacherous little corpse left to paint the beach with after I’m done with you,’ Gariath snorted, apparently unimpressed.
‘You tried to kill me just today,’ the boy warned, his finger glowing an angry azure. ‘That didn’t pan out so well, did it?’
‘If I had tried to kill you, you’d be dead.’
‘Gentlemen.’ Asper sighed, exasperated. ‘Can we not do this in front of the siren?’ Met with only a snarl and the crackle of lightning brewing, she turned an incredulous gaze to Lenk. ‘Aren’t you going to do something?’
That sounded like a good idea; however much Gariath would like to believe differently, Dreadaeleon’s magic was more than capable of reducing things far larger than a dragonman to puddles.
Lenk’s attention, however, was less on the boy’s finger and more on the rest of him: on the way he stood so confident and poised, on the way his eyes were clear enough to reflect the blue sparks dancing across his hand.
‘You’re using magic again,’ he said, more for his own benefit than the wizard’s.
‘At least someone noticed,’ Dreadaeleon growled.
‘You could barely walk after the crash.’ Lenk leaned forwards, intent on his companion. ‘What happened?’
At the question, the boy seemed to forget his impending evisceration. He lowered his finger, magic extinguished, and beamed a smile at the young man. With all the propriety of an actor, he stepped aside and gestured to the siren, who merely blinked and smiled.
‘She did it,’ he said, ‘with her song.’
Lenk felt his heart quicken a beat. ‘You can heal,’ he whispered, ‘with your song?’
‘It is within my power to soothe.’ She nodded.
His mind quickened to match his heart, a flood of thoughts streaming in. The siren could heal. . no, not heal, soothe. She could soothe Dreadaeleon’s headache, an affliction that no known medicine could cure. She could soothe the mind.
And perhaps, he thought, the voices within it.
‘Sit down.’ He waved a hand at Gariath.
‘What?’ The dragonman growled. ‘Why?’
‘I want to hear what she has to say,’ he replied. ‘Not that I’m promising anything, but if Dreadaeleon believes in her, we should give her a chance.’
‘The little runt came within an inch of betraying us,’ Gariath snorted, ‘and the last thing she said made the shict deaf.’
Lenk tensed himself at the mention of Kataria, not for any anticipation that she might yell again, but for the fact that he suddenly felt her gaze upon him. Glancing from the corner of his eye, for he did not meet her stare directly, he imagined she could be looking at him for any number of reasons: explanation, impatience. .
Or perhaps his suspicions were right and, deaf as she was, those giant ears could still hear his thoughts.
‘If I held attempted murder against everyone in this group,’ he said calmly, looking away from the shict and towards the dragonman, ‘then we’d never get anything done. He’s entitled to at least one attempt on your life for all the times you’ve actively attempted on his.’
The dragonman’s glower shifted about the circle, from the siren to the young man to the boy, then once more around the others assembled. Finally, he settled a scowl upon Lenk.
‘You couldn’t stop me, you know,’ he grunted.
‘Probably not.’ Lenk shrugged.
‘Good. So long as we all understand that.’ He snorted, took a step backwards, settled upon his haunches and scowled at the siren. ‘Talk.’
The female blinked. ‘In regards to. .’
‘Start with your name?’ Asper offered. ‘I believe that’s where we left off before we decided to act like raving psychotics.’
‘I. . I do not have a name, I am afraid,’ she replied meekly. ‘I have never had a use for one.’
‘Everyone needs a name,’ Dreadaeleon quickly retorted. ‘What else would we call you?’
‘Screechy.’ Denaos nodded. ‘Screechy MacEarbleed.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Asper chastised. ‘She needs something elegant. . like from a play.’
‘Lashenka!’ Dreadaeleon piped up, enthused. ‘You remember the tragedy, don’t you? Lament for a King. She looks like the young heiress, Lashenka.’
‘Sounds too close to Lenk.’ The priestess tapped her chin. ‘Were there any other players in it? I never saw it on stage. For that matter, was it any good?’
‘It was. . decent. Nothing too thrilling, but worth the silver spent.’
‘Silver? When did theatre become worth that kind of money?’
‘Well, this particular one had the Merry Murderers, the troupe from Jaharla, and-’
‘Enough.’ Gariath was on his feet again, stomping upon the ground angrily. He snorted, levelling a claw at the siren. ‘Your name is Greenhair. Get on with it.’
‘Greenhair?’ Asper scratched her head. ‘It has a certain charm to it, but I’m not sure that-’
‘Tell me,’ Gariath almost whispered, ‘can you finish that thought with your tongue torn out and shoved in your ear?’
‘I don’t-’
‘Do you want to find out?’ With a decisive snort, he glowered at the siren. ‘Her name is Greenhair. Get on with it.’
‘It’s a fine name.’ Lenk nodded. ‘Just so we’re all on even footing, though, our names are-’
‘There is no need.’ The siren held up a hand while casting a smile at Dreadaeleon. ‘I have been informed, Silverhair, of much of who you are and what you do in the Sea Mother’s domain.’ Her smile broadened. ‘And I expect it is by Her hand that I meet you now.’
‘Rather high praise,’ Lenk muttered. ‘But you said you needed our help.’
‘And I thank you for it.’
‘Save your thanks,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t say we’d give any.’
A smile played across her features. Lenk felt his hand unconsciously resting on his sword; something in the creature’s gaze was unsettling. Absently, his thoughts drifted back to the Abysmyth. This thing expressed as much emotion in a twist of pale blue lips as that thing could not in a cacophony of shrieks.
‘Your. . callings are not unknown to me.’ She did not so much as flinch at his bluntness. ‘You are. . adventurers, yes? And adventurers seek compensation for their trials. Such is the way of the sea. What is given must be earned, what is earned is not easily lost.’
‘If that’s a lot of fancy talk for gold, then I’m interested.’ Denaos eyed the wispy silk she wore. ‘I dare suggest I’d be more than tempted to help you if you planned on
showing me wherever you hid it, though.’
‘I have no riches for you, Longleg.’ She shook her hair. ‘What I offer, however, is something more precious than gold. Something you have lost.’
Lenk leaned forwards again. He could sense the word resting on her tongue as a hedonist sensed a tongue resting on something else.
‘I am informed,’ she said, so slowly as to drive him wild, ‘that you seek a tome.’
Buttocks tightened collectively.
Not a single face remained unchanged at the word. Expressions went alight with various stages of greed, hope and anticipation. Even Kataria’s eyes seemed to widen, if only at the simultaneous reaction amongst her companions. Lenk himself could not imagine what his own face must have looked like, but fought to twist it into stony caution nonetheless. The last time someone had mentioned a tome to him, it had led to him and Kataria nearly being slaughtered.
He had since come to treat the word warily.
‘What do you know of it?’
‘What I have been told by the lorekeeper and what I am able to conclude on my own,’ the siren replied. ‘The tome was lost. You, specifically, wish to find it. I am at once filled with joy and sorrow for you.’
Lenk felt his face twitch; good news never began with those words.
‘You don’t know where it is?’ he asked.
‘I know where it is,’ she replied. ‘I have seen much, heard much from the fish before they fled at the presence of the demons.’ As if reading his thoughts through his eyes, she nodded grimly. ‘The two you discovered on the blackened sands were but the sneezes and coughs of a sickness with many, many symptoms.’
He almost loathed to ask. ‘How many?’
‘Many,’ she said simply. ‘They have risen from the depths of the ocean that the Sea Mother has forgotten. They have tainted the waters, as they do all things, and blackened the sea such that no living thing remains between here and their temple.’
Her voice changed suddenly. What had begun as liquid song that slipped through his ears soundless became heavy and bloated, a salt-pregnant wave that seemed to steal the air from the sky as she spoke.
