by Sam Sykes
‘There is no heaven for rats,’ Gariath snarled, shoving the rogue. ‘They get tossed on the trash heap and rot in a hole.’
‘ENOUGH!’ Kataria’s cry temporarily skewered the argument. As an uneasy silence descended, she glanced towards Lenk, staring absently across the sea. ‘And what do you say? You’re the one who usually chooses between bad ideas.’
‘Oh, is that what I do?’
He had no more words, only eyes, and they were fixated upon the fortress. The sun was dying at the horizon, descending into a blue grave, and the impending darkness seeped into his thoughts.
One Abysmyth, he reasoned, was invincible. It was a vicious brute capable of ripping people apart and drowning them on dry land, sometimes inflicting both on the same person. The fact that there was more than one had seemed a nightmare too horrifying to contemplate earlier that day.
The fact that there were more than two, discounting how many multitudes of frogmen and Omens accompanied them, was too horrifying not to contemplate.
In light of that fact, all plans seemed equally insane, save the unspoken idea of just turning around and leaving.
And yet, he thought, not even Denaos has suggested leaving. .
Further, he had entered a contract; not just an adventurer’s agreement, but a contract, penned and sealed with promises. He had sold his word to Miron Evenhands, for one thousand pieces of gold.
A man’s word, no matter how expensive it might be, is the only thing of any real worth a man can give.
His grandfather had told him that, he was certain.
Don’t forget, though, that honour and common sense are mutually exclusive.
His grandfather had also said that.
‘Lenk?’
He felt Kataria prodding him, breaking his reverie.
‘I. .’ he inhaled dramatically and his companions held their breath with him, ‘am hungry.’ He sighed and so did they. ‘And tired.’
With that, he turned from the fortress and began to trudge away. They watched him for a few moments before Denaos spoke up.
‘What? That’s it?’
‘Night is falling,’ he replied. ‘If I’m going to my death, it can wait until I’ve had dinner.’
ACT THREE
The Mouth, the Prophet, the Voice
Interlogue
DON’T ASK
The Aeons’ Gate
Ktamgi, a few days north and east (?) of Toha
Summer, getting later
So, why be an adventurer?
Why forsake the security of a mercenary guild, the comfort of a family or the patriotism of a soldier to serve at the whims of unscrupulous characters and perform deeds that fall somewhere in the triangle of madness, villainy and self-loathing?
To be honest, I hadn’t actually asked myself that for awhile. Don’t misunderstand; I asked myself all the time when I first began doing this sort of thing, three years ago. I don’t recall ever finding an answer. .
Eventually, one begins to accept one’s lot in life, adventurers included, so I suppose I’d say the chief reason people stay with this, let’s be honest, rather abhorrent career decision is out of sheer laziness. But that doesn’t really offer an answer to the chief question, does it?
Why do it in the first place?
Freedom, perhaps, could be one reason: the need to be without the beck and call of sergeants, kings or even customers. An adventurer is as close as you can get to that sort of thing without declaring yourself outright a highwayman or rapist. Hardly any profit in the latter, anyway.
Greed is certainly another factor, for though adventurers don’t get hired often, we do typically end up with whatever gold we acquire along the way from robberies, plundering or looting … which might be why we don’t get hired very often.
That aside, I think the real reason is the first one: laziness.
Wait, let me rephrase.
Comfort.
There’s precious little of it to be found in an adventurer’s life, it’s certain. . and maybe that’s why we pick up a sword or a bow or a knife and decide to do it. It makes sense, doesn’t it? We all want comfort, in one way or another.
Asper wants the comfort of being able to provide comfort to others in the name of Talanas; being an adventurer gives her plenty of opportunity.
Dreadaeleon wants the comfort of knowing he did everything he could to make himself and his art stronger; again, plenty of opportunity.
Gariath wants the comfort of knowing he did everything he could to reduce the population of every non-dragonman species; I suspect there’s a greater reason, but I haven’t had any inclination to endure the head-stompings that asking would entail.
Denaos wants gold, I suppose, but why our gold is anyone’s guess. He could get gold anywhere else. Maybe he just wants the comfort of knowing he’s close to people as scummy as himself.
Kataria. . is a mystery.
She has everything people who adventure typically don’t have: family, identity, security, homeland. Granted, I know only as much about shicts as I’d heard in stories and what I’ve learned from Kataria, but such things, and she’s bragged as much, are abundant in shictish society. If she had stayed with them, she’d undoubtedly lead a happy life hunting deer, raising little shictlets and perhaps killing a human or two.
As for me. . maybe by staying near her I can remember what having those things is like. .
… The family and identity part. Not the killing humans part. Though I suspect I’ve done enough of that to warrant at least a nod from the shicts.
To that end, I briefly considered asking her to stay behind today.
If I die, there’s nothing much that will be sorry for my loss. A dead child is a tragedy. A dead man is a funeral. A dead soldier is a loss. A dead adventurer is a lump in the ground and possibly a round of drinks from his former employer. If Gariath or Denaos die, there’ll just be one less murderer running loose. If Asper or Dread die, they’ll have done so for a cause and, thusly, not in vain.
But if Kat dies. . people will mourn.
I would have liked to tell her to stay. . but, alas, I am an adventurer and it’s true what Denaos said: practicality, not bravery, is what drives us.
And having her as a part of my plan is very practical.
The following sentence will undoubtedly prove to be the point of identification in this particular saga where I ceased to be merely foolhardy and became totally mad:
I’ve decided to go into Irontide, after the tome.
Thus far, I’ve determined the best means of procuring said book will be through stealth. And, with that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I’ve decided to divide us up for that purpose. It should come as no further surprise that Gariath won’t be coming along.
Nor will Asper or Dreadaeleon — they are too squeamish and too curious, respectively, to be of any use. Denaos, however, is both a thug and possessed of a particular aversion to what lies inside. He’ll be perfect.
Kataria is a stalker and a hunter. I need keen senses in there, too; if Gariath’s nose can’t come, I’ll gladly settle for Kat’s ears. Her bow will be a welcome asset, as well.
With that in mind, the rest of the plan falls pretty easily into place. Dread’s glamer, we’re hoping, can apparently draw out the Omens. . and the big one, too. If that doesn’t work, we’ll find a way to lure them away long enough for us three, who I’ve deemed ‘Team Imminent Evisceration’, to swim across and find our way in.
The remainder will stay behind to watch out for anything, to fix the boat. . and to carry what’s left of us back to Miron should we fail. Now, I don’t mean our remains, since if we do fail, there’s most certainly not going to be enough left of us to sprinkle on gruel, much less bury.
But Greenhair, for all her shrieking, made clear something that had plagued me for a while.
These aren’t pirates we’re fighting. They’re demons. Their goals aren’t loot and murder, but resurrection. They, themselves something that should not be, are t
rying to summon something that definitely should not be. And they’re succeeding, if a bigger Omen is anything to go by.
If we do fail, I trust Asper, at least, to make it back to Port Destiny to tell Miron exactly what’s going on.
Dawn is approaching. After a less than satisfying meal of jerky and fruit, my intestines are in working order and my rear is tightly clenched. If I do die today, I most certainly will not be going out soiled.
I’ll write more if I make it out.
Hope is ill-advised.
Twenty
THE PLEASANT LIES
The dawn was shy, too polite to come and chase the stars away, contenting itself to slowly creep into the twilit conversation one wisp at a time. The seas caught between night and day in shiftless masses of molten gold and silver. The night had yet to fade, the dawn had yet to break; the world was mired in an indecision of purple and yellow.
Absently, Lenk wished for more than just a meagre piece of charcoal to sketch the scene.
His desire was for naught; there hadn’t been any quills in the companion vessel’s cargo. He’d likely miss the flaky black stuff when the time came to build a fire, but for now, all it was good for was writing and sketching.
A breeze cut across the sea, heavy with the cold salt of the pre-dawn mist. It slithered across his body like a frigid serpent, and went unheeded. He rarely felt the cold any more. Rain and winter, sun and spring, all felt the same to him: a faint tingle, a passing shiver, and then nothing.
He paused, staring blankly at the journal in his lap.
He couldn’t feel cold any more. .
‘You’re up early.’
He was torn from further thought by the sound of her voice. Kataria stood behind him, clad in doeskin breeches and shortened green tunic, staring at him with some concern, ears twitching and naked toes wriggling in the sand.
‘Yeah,’ he said, returning to his sketch.
Her footsteps were loud and crunching against the moist sand; that wasn’t good. When she didn’t bother to hide the sound of her feet, it usually meant she wasn’t going to hide any other sounds she might make.
‘You didn’t eat much last night.’ She took a seat beside him.
‘We need to ration.’ He didn’t look up. ‘Gariath eats enough for two men, Denaos eats more to spite Gariath.’ He allowed the corner of his eye to drift over her slender, pale form. ‘You didn’t eat much either, and you’re up as early as I am.’
‘My people don’t eat or sleep as much as humans.’ She didn’t even bother to hide her smirk. ‘We don’t need to.’
‘Mm.’ Even his grunt was half-hearted, long past hearing or caring about the numerous self-proclaimed advantages of shicts.
‘I didn’t know you drew.’ She peered over his shoulder and blanched.
‘Mm.’
‘You’re terrible at it.’
‘Mm.’
‘You don’t seem to understand how this works. I say something to you, you say something back, we fight, maybe someone bleeds. That’s how we communicate.’
‘Too early,’ he replied. ‘I’ll stab you in the eye a little later and we’ll call it a day.’
‘I won’t be in the mood later.’ She leaned over his lap, making him stiffen. ‘What do you draw, anyway?’
‘Those islands to the north.’ He simultaneously gestured to three faint specks of greenery as he shoved her away. ‘I hadn’t noticed them until today.’ He tapped the charcoal to his chin. ‘It’s possible that one of them is Teji. Seems worthwhile to sketch it, don’t you think?’
‘You don’t want to know what I think. What else do you draw?’
Before he could answer, her hands darted out like two pale ferrets. Before he could protest, they snatched the journal out of his lap. Cackling unpleasantly, she tumbled away from him, evading flailing fists. With a deft leap, she rolled to her feet and began to thumb through the pages, strolling away with an insulting casualness.
‘Hm, yes.’ She scratched an imaginary beard, eyes darting over the pages. ‘Seas. . gates. . demons. . hope.’ She smacked her lips. ‘A little morbid, you think? It needs a bit of editing. Skip all this gibberish about humans and stick to the parts about shicts.’
‘It’s for reading, not wiping.’
His hands closed murderously about empty air as she sprang away. Backpedalling without the slightest hint of caution, she continued to peruse.
‘Just as well, I’m not so much the literary sort.’
‘More of the illiterate sort, are you?’
‘If you could be half as clever in your writing, you might actually have some value. Let’s see if your drawings are half as terrible.’
‘What? Wait a moment!’
‘A moment to you is an eternity to me.’ She nimbly evaded his hands as she noted the various sketches scrawled in charcoal. ‘Not bad, I suppose. If you ever lose your will to fight, you can hack out a living with a piece of charcoal and a dream, can’t you?’
She was prepared to slam the book shut and hurl it at him as he took a menacing step forwards when a frayed edge of parchment caught her eye.
‘What’s this, then? Something worth reading amongst such drivel?’
No sooner had the page turned than her feet froze in the sand. Her eyes went wide at the sight before her: an image that looked almost wrong in the midst of Lenk’s writings. With an elegance she had not seen in his other drawings of demons, landscapes and other combinations of equally boring and horrifying subjects, the page seemed less a sketch and more a memory, revisited frequently in the strokes of charcoal and ink.
It was slender, a wispy figure traced in smooth lines upon the parchment, hair long and unbound, fluttering like wings behind a naked, rigid back. Everything about the figure was hard, fighting against the softness of the lines and winning effortlessly. Even its eyes, brighter than black ink should allow, were fierce and strong.
It wasn’t until she noted the pair of long, notched ears that she heard his feet thunder on the shore.
He lunged, wrapped arms about her middle and pulled her to the earth in a spray of sand. She was breathless as he straddled her waist; whether from the drawing, the blow or the physical contact, she did not know. He loomed over her in a burst of blue, two eyes bright and dominated by vast, dark pupils. She found no memories of what that stare had once lacked, only a desire not to look away, a desire to meet his gaze.
And to smile.
Such a feeling lasted for but a moment before she spied the journal held high above him like a weapon of leather and paper. With a snarl, he brought it down and smashed it against the side of her face.
‘OW!’ She shoved him off and scowled as he skulked away. ‘How is that, to any race, a reasonable reaction?’
‘Based on the fact that a man’s journal is his sole refuge from the vile and uncouth elements of the world he chooses to name as his companions,’ the young man replied snootily. ‘And, as a violator of that refuge, I invoked my Gods-given right to bash your narrow head with that refuge.’
‘Disregarding the obvious fact that your logic is completely deranged,’ she pulled herself to her feet, ‘why so secretive about it, anyway? It’s not like I haven’t seen anything you put in there.’
His stride slowed at that, suddenly afflicted by some degenerative disease that forced him to walk, then trudge, then stop with a painful finality, rigid as a corpse in an upright coffin.
‘These are my thoughts.’ His whisper cut through the air like a knife.
‘Well,’ she gritted her teeth, feeling his voice rake against her flesh, ‘I mean, they’re fine and all, but-’
‘But what? You’ve seen them before, have you?’
‘No, but-’
‘Heard them, then?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Exactly.’ He whirled on her, hurling his scowl like a spear and skewering her upon the sands. ‘You don’t see my thoughts. You don’t hear my thoughts. You don’t know anything beyond what your self-important shicty s
elf believes you do.’ His mouth went tight as he tucked the journal under his arm and stalked away. ‘Let’s not ruin that special relationship we share.’
He had barely taken two steps before he felt her reply impale him and hold him fast.
‘I know you don’t dream.’
Lenk forced himself not to turn around; he would not give her the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen, would not let her hear his heart skip a beat. The sound of the waves was suddenly uncomfortably quiet, the creeping of the mist far too slow for his liking.
‘Not like other humans, at least,’ she continued softly. ‘Yours are fevered and wild. You snarl and whimper in your sleep.’
‘And what tells you this?’ he replied, just as soft. ‘Whatever mental illness passes for shictish intuition?’
‘You cry out in the night from time to time.’ Her voice was emotionless, denying him any anger and any opportunity to end this conversation. ‘Not loudly, not lately, but you do. I’ve seen it.’
His breath caught in his throat. Suddenly, her hand was on his arm, the naked flesh of her fingers pressing against this rapidly tensing bicep. Though desiring not to, though he shrieked at himself not to, he turned and stared into her twin emeralds.
In the year he had known her, he had become accustomed to so much of her: her savagery, her ears, her profoundly morbid laughter. Even her near-total disregard for human life was something he had learned to accept about her. Her stare, however, was something he knew at that moment he would never feel comfortable under.
She never condemned him, never judged him; never did an emotion flicker in the endless green. Her face was blank, mouth small as eyes were wide. He felt vulnerable under her gaze, beyond naked, as though she stared through flesh, bone, sinew, past what some people might call a soul and into something else entirely.
