by Sam Sykes
‘How is progress made, then, if everyone is sated with gods, with theories, with instinct? No. Progress … true progress …’
From red silk lining, it slid out: a jagged sliver of a blade, as long and thin as two of his purple fingers. Its metal was polished to a high sheen. He turned. The fires in his eyes had been extinguished with the removal of the crown. Behind them, in that milk-white stare, a sadistic glee that had been hidden in crimson was reflected in the blade.
‘Is found deeper.’
Bury your fear deep, the Howling told her. Show him nothing.
It was difficult for her to comply with that as he drew closer, the blade hanging at his side, dangling limply from his fingers. She took it in, along with his stare, his grin, with equal dread as he came upon her.
‘And look at how you look at me,’ he whispered, his voice an edge itself, ‘with such judgement. I’ve seen it before, of course, and it strikes me as so hypocritical. That is the word, isn’t it? Wherein you deny one truth because it seems inconvenient? Yes, hypocritical. It is hypocritical for you to think that the pursuit of knowledge can ever be second to anything. If you think the pursuit of it cruel, then clearly, you don’t know enough, do you?
‘The netherlings know. We were born in nothing. We expected nothing. But this world … it’s so brimming with … everything.’ His tongue flicked against his teeth with each word, unable to be contained. ‘And we owe it to ourselves to know, to find out. We cannot be content with instinct, with what we suspected we knew. It would be disingenuous. We would never progress.
‘This, I believe, is why I arrived here. Certainly, the Grey One That Grins opened the door in his search, but it had to happen for a reason. Divine happenstance, as you might suspect? No, no … it was natural. It was inevitable. Someone had to come, to understand this world so that netherlings and overscum as a whole might progress.’
Show nothing. Say nothing. Do not look away. Do not give him reason.
She felt a bead of sweat form at her temple. It felt her fear as it felt his stare upon it. It fled, sliding down her brow, over her jawline, rolling across her chest, through the fur garment to drip down upon her belly. As it chased the centreline of her abdomen and hung above her navel, his finger shot out, pressed against her skin. At her gasp, the shudder of her stomach, his grin grew as broad and sharp as his knife.
‘But to know, we must dig, we must seek, we must pry and we must cut.’ He lifted his finger, studied the bead of sweat upon it. ‘We must go into the base and find out what makes you work, what makes your heart beat and belly tremble. And you will show me.’
He pinched his fingers together, a brief flash of fire behind his eyes as the sweat sizzled into steam. Grinning all the broader, he reached out to seize her by the jaw, running the tip of his blade down her body, gooseflesh rising in the wake of the gentle, razor grazing.
‘You will show me everything.’
The urge to indulge him rose inside her, the urge to wail and scream in the hopes that someone would hear her before that knife angled just a hair and slid into the tender flesh of her abdomen. In his grins, real and reflected, was a suggestion to do just that, to obey if she sought to survive.
DO NOT. The Howling rang out inside her head. He perverts instinct, destroys reason. Do not scream. Do not show fear. Do not even think.
And as soon as she knew this, her breathing stilled, her eyes dimmed, the fear seeping out of them. His own grin diminished slightly, seeing such a thing. She knew then that he could not succeed, that he could not exploit fear as he had hoped.
‘Get away from her!’
Not hers, anyway.
They both looked to the corner: she with a quick, fervent glance, he with a slow, lurid stare. Asper had found her nerve, sitting up straight in her bonds, staring fire through tear-stained eyes, trembling against the ropes that held her. Her lower jaw was clenched tightly as she leaned forward, baring teeth at him.
‘Don’t you touch her,’ she hissed.
Damn it, Asper, Kataria growled inwardly.
She looked back to Sheraptus. He apparently sensed her thoughts, offering her a lurid grin. The malicious glimmer in his eyes was as unmistakable as the swell of his breeches. Kataria was more horrified than she suspected she ought to be to know that neither were meant for her.
‘Close your eyes, if you want,’ he whispered. ‘Shut your ears as best you can. Just know …’ He swept his stare to the bound priestess. ‘You could have stopped this.’
Asper’s resolve seemed to melt with every step forward he took, her fear becoming more apparent, every quiver on her flesh bare to his pervasive stare, every lump disappearing down her throat heard with painful clarity. Kataria desperately wanted to turn away, to not hear, but found herself bound by his words as surely as the ropes.
She had caused this. Asper would suffer.
For me.
‘It never lasts long, does it?’ Sheraptus almost cooed as he descended upon her. ‘The defiance, the hope, the anger, the sorrow … You can always come back.’
He shrugged. His robe fell from his shoulders. Kataria beheld purple muscle; red lines from which blood had once wept painted a picture of hate and fury upon his flesh.
‘They fight back, at first, but that’s only one of two constants. After that, it becomes so many things: pleading, persuasion, bargaining until finally …’ He sighed. ‘The second constant. Nothing. No more fear, no more noise. They’re … broken.’
‘S-stay away from me,’ Asper whimpered, pulling back. Kataria noticed her shifting to one side, tucking her left arm behind her as she did. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘Yes, that’s usually how it starts.’ He canted his head to the side. ‘But … not with you, no. You’re wearing a mask, aren’t you? You only want me to think you’re like the others. There’s something within you … something I have felt before.’
‘I don’t know what—’
‘You do. I know you do, because I do.’ Sheraptus raised a brow. ‘Some qualities go deeper than breed. Some qualities, as loathsome as it is to admit it, are inherent. In you, I sense our instincts … that which drives us to kill, to cause anguish and suffering with no reason other than that’s what we do.’
‘You’re wrong,’ she gasped, her voice a whimper. ‘You’re wrong!’
‘Never.’ His eyes flared to crimson life. ‘Never wrong.’
He uttered the alien word, his hand rose and she followed, suspended by an invisible force. She shrieked, the sound ringing in Kataria’s ears, drawing Sheraptus’ smile wider. His hand extended, he took a step forward and staggered. His spare hand went to his brow as he swayed on his feet.
‘Master,’ Xhai said, stepping forward with hands outstretched. ‘It’s the crown. The Grey One That Grins slipped it to you to weaken you. You don’t need it.’ A needy whine slipped into her voice. ‘These overscum women, you don’t need them, either. They’re both making you weaker.’
‘Weaker?’ He turned to her with an expression of hurt on his face, though the fraud behind it was obvious. ‘Xhai … do you think I’m … weak?’
Obvious to almost everyone.
‘N-no, Master!’ she said, shaking her head violently. ‘I am just concerned for—’
‘Unnecessary, Carnassial,’ he hissed with sudden fury, turning back to Asper. ‘I don’t like using magic for this. It dulls everything. What can be learned when all qualities and variables are dashed?’
He growled another word, shoving his hand forward. Asper was flung against the wall of the cabin, her scream choked in pain, her struggling impotent as he strode forward. His eyes were wide, white. His lips trembled, shifting between grin and animal need.
‘Knowledge gained through nethra is nothing. It’s too swift, too open to doubt. True knowledge is found through observation, through experiment. Slowly.’
He waved his hand. Asper’s shriek was cut short as she was flipped about by the unseen force, her belly pressed against the cabin wall, her bound a
rms presented to him. He reached out and placed a hand upon her naked left shoulder.
‘And here is where it all starts … This is the source of it, the beginning.’ His hand slid down her arm, tightening here, pinching there, counting off each knuckle in her fingers. ‘Such pain in it … I can feel it in you, feel them screaming. But this … this is merely a vessel.’ His hand slid lower, rested upon her buttock. ‘Show me, little creature, where the true suffering lies.’
Kataria didn’t understand his words, didn’t even hear him. She could only hear Asper’s whimpering, the screams choked inside her, the shuddering dread in her flesh. She could only see Asper’s tears pouring from her eyes, over her red cheeks and into her clenched teeth as she tried to shut them against him, against everything.
She could only feel Asper’s fear, her rage at how little she could fight against him, how she could do nothing as his fingers slid up past her loincloth.
To his sigh of contentment, she wished she could shut her ears … and then tear out his throat.
‘Ah …’ he whispered. ‘There it is.’ He smiled, pressing his body against hers. ‘Just takes a bit of trauma, doesn’t it? Everything with your breed does. It’s the catalyst that makes you shift so constantly. Yours will emerge, I think, only after more, only after …’
He paused, looking up and away from her, staring into nothing. Xhai seemed to pick up on this instantly, stepping forward with a furrowed brow and clenched fists.
‘Master?’
‘We,’ he whispered, ‘have company.’
Before she could even form a suspicion, a chorus of screams rang out from the ship’s deck and assaulted Kataria’s ears. The sound of metal clanging, voices chanting, a thunderous roar, alien words. Through it all, barely audible through the wood, she heard a voice screaming itself hoarse with her name.
Lenk.
A human, the Howling answered. Not important.
‘We’re under attack,’ Xhai snarled. She stalked to the wall, seizing her massive metal wedge of a sword. ‘Nothing but worthless high-fingers out there. I’ll be back.’
‘No, no,’ Sheraptus said. ‘That will take a bit longer than I’d like. I’ll handle this personally. Stay here and guard them.’
‘Guard,’ she growled in indignation. ‘I’m a Carnassial. The First Carnassial. Your Carnassial. Let me do this for you; let me—’
‘Unnecessary,’ he replied. ‘Besides …’
He glanced at his fingers, disdainfully wiping them clean upon his robes.
‘I’m in a bit of a mood.’
He withdrew his other hand, his power dissipating and letting Asper slide dejectedly to the floor. He swept across the floor, beckoning robe and crown to his hand with a wave. Slowly, he affixed both and turned to the cabin’s door, pausing only to spare a smile for Xhai.
‘Come now, Xhai, if I trusted anyone else …’
‘I would kill them,’ she grunted.
‘Absolutely.’ He swept his burning eyes back to Asper. ‘I shall return shortly.’
He was gone in an instant. Only then did Kataria look at Asper, lying motionless upon the floor, not enough breath left in her to sob, not enough life in her to stir. Kataria stared at her, the woman who was rendered so still, so lifeless, because she had spoken up for the shict. Kataria stared, mouth hanging open, unable to find words to comfort she who had spoken the words that had condemned her.
The din of battle outside grew louder. Not loud enough to drown out the Howling.
She is a human. Her actions are a symptom of her disease. You owe her nothing.
Not loud enough to convince Kataria.
Thirty-One
SUBTLETY IS FOR THE DEAD
I was supposed to have given this up …
There was no doubt in his step as he darted low under a wild swing from a purple arm, shoving his blade up into purple skin, stared up into a purple face. The light leaked out of her white eyes in swift order, the last moments of her life spent spewing a blood-slurred curse from her teeth before she collapsed to the deck of the ship.
Wasn’t I?
‘Unique circumstances.’
He felt his hands driven of their own accord, twisting the blade inside her to extinguish the last sparks.
You’re not supposed to be so chatty, either.
‘You’re supposed to deny us more powerfully.’
And yet …
‘Clarity is a wonderful thing. Behind you.’
‘QAI ZHOTH!’
He whirled and saw the pair of longfaces charging. While he might not have heard Dreadaeleon’s arcane verse over their war cry, he certainly heard the roaring crackle of fire that followed. A great red plume preceded the boy like a herald as he strode forward, arm outstretched to sweep his fiery harbinger over the pair. They writhed, shrieking as they attempted to press forward, then fall back, before they simply fell, blackened and smoking.
‘Nice work,’ Lenk remarked.
‘Well, I do it all for your approval,’ Dreadaeleon replied, panting. ‘This wasn’t a good idea. I’m strong enough to do that, but not for much longer. Not without …’ He glanced at Lenk, then grunted. ‘We should have opted for another strategy.’
‘The other strategy was to leave Kat and Asper to die.’
‘We could have tried something else. Subtlety, perhaps.’
‘We are a pubescent magic-spewing freak, a man with a disembodied screaming head and four hundred pounds of angry reptile. What about that suggests “subtlety” to you?’
A thunder of boots rumbled through the ship’s black hull; alien war cries rose through the planks of the deck. At the bow of the ship, the purple shapes of the netherlings began to emerge from the shadows of a companionway.
The shriek that met theirs was shrill and terrified.
A green shape came hurtling over Lenk’s shoulder like a scaly meteor, colliding with the lead longface with a resounding cracking sound. She collapsed into her companions as Togu, bound and squealing, rebounded from her chest and rolled along the deck.
Lenk had wondered why Gariath had insisted on bringing him along up until now.
Gariath followed, charged on all fours, complementing Togu’s strike with one from his own horns. He struck the longface’s purple torso, rose to his feet and continued to press her back into her fellows, choking their rush in the companionway’s darkened throat.
‘Five hundred pounds, maybe. He’s looking healthy today,’ Lenk said, cringing at the flurry of claws and teeth and noting the wisdom in keeping his distance. ‘Subtlety is where Denaos comes in.’
‘Pointless,’ Dreadaeleon muttered. ‘The moment the heretic even looks at him sideways, he’s dead and we’ll follow. Did you not see what he can do? What he did?’
‘I saw,’ Lenk replied. ‘If I was duly frightened of everything that makes you faint, however, I’d never get anything done. This is the only chance we have.’ He shoved the boy forward. ‘Now, do something useful.’
The boy’s eyes narrowed and, whether because of Lenk’s command or in spite of it, blossomed with crimson light. He swept his hands toward the companionway, the fire in his palms blooming with the murmur from his mouth. He placed them both upon the deck and, with a resounding word, sent serpentine flame racing to meet in the companionway and erect a wall of crackling orange to segregate the dragonman and the netherlings.
Gariath stared at the sudden obstacle with undue contemplation, as though wondering whether to leap through the fire and continue the assault or perhaps just break Dreadaeleon’s hands to bring it down first.
Lenk was more prepared for either of those than to see the dragonman reach down, scoop up Togu’s bound form, and drag him back with unnerving patience. At Lenk’s apparent surprise, he shrugged.
‘I’ve killed a lot so far,’ he said. ‘I can wait for a few more.’
‘The point is not to kill them,’ Lenk replied, ‘but to distract them until Denaos can do what he needs to.’ He glanced over the edge of the ship. ‘Th
en we leap off, reunite with Hongwe and paddle off before anyone can kill us.’ He glanced to Togu, wide-eyed and squealing behind a gag. ‘What’d you bring him for, anyway?’
‘He caused this, as you say. He should see it to the end,’ the dragonman replied. ‘The end being that you all die, of course.’
‘Not you?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You seem in good spirits. How have you been, anyway?’
‘Not dead yet.’
‘Nor us.’
‘Yet.’
‘Right, yet. It’s a bit strange to see you so enthusiastic.’
‘I could leave, if you want.’
‘Not yet.’
Gariath said nothing in reply, sweeping his gaze up and down the ship. Aside from Dreadaeleon’s murmuring chant holding the flames up and the netherlings back, the deck was quiet from companionway to the looming cabin at the ship’s stern.
‘And you’re waiting for what?’
It happened in an instant. Sound died, wary of being heard. Clouds covered the moon, terrified to be seen. Pressure settled over the deck as the sky sank low and tried to hide beneath the sea.
‘That,’ Lenk whispered.
Dreadaeleon’s voice was choked from him, his chant and the flames it conjured extinguished in an instant. The netherlings emerged from the companionway slowly, all their bloodlust and hatred still present in their white stares, but restrained behind shields and nocked arrows.
Keeping baleful stares on the companions as they defensively backed up against the ship’s great mast, the netherlings filed out silently, uttering no more than a curse or growl as they took positions, surrounding their prey, but making no move to raise blade or draw bow. The yearning to do so was frighteningly plain on their faces, but they were restrained by some unheard command, a cautious calm settling over them that Lenk found unsettling.
He had seen this before.
‘Can I help you?’ a voice, deep and rolling, bade Lenk to turn.
Against the purple pillars of muscle and iron that flanked him, the longface didn’t look too imposing at a glance. It didn’t take long for Lenk to become reacquainted with the eyes ablaze and the halo of black iron wrapped about Sheraptus’ brow, however. It took even less time for him to raise his sword cautiously and slip a hand to his belt and the burlap sack hanging from it.
