The litah’s tongue lolled as he stared unblinkingly at a pair of particularly plump six-year-olds. Saliva trickled from one corner of his open mouth. This did not unsettle their hosts, who thought the big cat was merely cooling himself.
“Find one fast, man, and tell our friends to keep the meat coming, or as surely as blood runs red I am liable to forget myself.”
It was therefore for an assortment of reasons that Ehomba was relieved when, employing some of Simna’s Chlengguu gold, they finally were able to book passage aboard a single-masted, square-rigged merchantman departing for the northern shores of the Aboqua. While more than a few members of the crew were leery about having so large and ferocious a feline running loose onboard, they took heart when his “keepers” demonstrated their control over it.
“Is this really necessary?” Reposing on the open deck with his forepaws crossed and jaws parted wide, a mildly annoyed Ahlitah held a pose while Ehomba placed his head deep into the cat’s cavernous, gaping mouth. Behind him, sailors whistled and cheered their approval and admiration. The herdsman withdrew himself and the cat slowly shut his jaws.
“That should be enough to reassure them you are tame,” Ehomba said under his breath.
The litah’s eyes widened slightly. “Tame, am I? They’d better hope this vessel’s supplies are adequate or they’re liable to see how ‘tame’ I really am.” Looking to his right, he inhaled deeply. “I’ve heard about the sea but never expected to see it. It smells like certain shallow lakes in late summer. All brine and brittle.”
“The voyage will not be long, as such journeys go, and I think you will enjoy it.” Ehomba ruffled the big cat’s mane. “The captain assures me there will be fresh fish for the duration of our crossing.”
Half closing his eyes, the litah placed his head down on his crossed paws. “Then I’ll be content. I quite like fish.” Within moments, he was snoring softly.
“Make sail there!” the first mate was shouting from his post alongside the helmsman. “Let go your main braces! Pulleys and haul. Ware the jetty cleats!”
Simna joined the southerner forward, where the truncated bowsprit thrust boldly out over the water. All around them, men were busy preparing to depart the tidy, compact harbor, with its freshly swept streets and innumerable pots and boxes of flowers.
“Been some time since I’ve sailed across anything wider than a lake.” He nodded northward. “Onward to treasure and glory, hoy?”
“To the fulfillment of my obligation,” Ehomba countered evenly.
“Aye, right, whatever.” Grinning expansively, the swordsman clapped his friend on his narrow back. For the first time in many weeks they were without the burden of packs and weapons, these having been placed in their private cabin belowdecks.
“It was good of the townspeople to recommend us to this ship’s master for passage.” The sea here was calmer, warmer, less fractious than the one that washed the beaches below his village, the herdsman reflected.
“Hoy, I never saw so many relieved faces as when we told them of the Chlengguu’s overthrow. I think they were grateful enough to buy us a boat, had we but asked them for one.”
“This is better.” Crossing his arms, Ehomba bent forward to lean on the wooden railing. “I am no sailor.”
“Naturally not.” Edging close and lowering his voice to a whisper, Simna gave his rangy friend a conspiratorial nudge. “Of course, with your powers you could have commanded a ship to sail itself, right?”
Ehomba sighed wearily. “When will you get it through your head, Simna, that I am nothing more than a humble herder of chewers of cud?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Turning away, the swordsman also directed his gaze to the open sea that lay before them. “Maybe when I’m in your company and Corruption doesn’t falter, great winds don’t perish at your hand, and your sword doesn’t call down a shard of heaven to scatter and confuse our enemies.”
“All that was accomplished through the knowledge and work of others. I was only a means of conveyance. We have been damned lucky.”
“Right. And I am a monk, one much versed in disguise.” He chuckled affably. “I’ll give you one thing, though, Etjole Ehomba. You’re one of the most skilled liars I’ve ever met. Not the best, by any means, but the most persistent.”
“Oh, very well,” the herdsman snapped, “believe what you will.”
“That’s the spirit!” Simna’s face was full of admiration. “Stick to your story no matter what.” He nodded forward. “It may help us on the other side.”
“You have never been to these northern lands?”
“More questions.” It was the swordsman’s turn to shake his head tiredly. “No, not to these.” He jerked a thumb back in the direction of the friendly seaport whose citizens had been so accommodating. “Among the Maliin, those who’ve made the crossing say that the northern lands are nothing like here, or where we’ve come from. They say that the level of civilization and enlightenment is such that they’re embarrassed to visit there. It makes me wonder what these northern eminencies will think of us. I’ve been around, but you’ll be out of your depth, and the cat will be little more than a novelty.”
“I will manage.” Ehomba wished he felt more confident. Villages and hamlets he was familiar and comfortable with, but a proper city was something entirely different. No matter. He had no choice. They had to go north to find a ship large and capable enough to cross the Semordria.
The Aboqua chose to be kind as they set out. There were waves, but they were curious rather than threatening. There was movement, but it was calming to the spirit instead of disturbing to the digestion. Flying fish exploded from the water in front of the ship’s onrushing prow, shooting away like silver darts to port and starboard before splashing and sinking anew into the welcoming whitecaps. Gulls harassed the stern, taking their ease on the mainspar and railings as they nagged the cook for scraps.
As paid passengers, the travelers were mostly left to themselves, though when Ahlitah would come on deck to nap in the sun the more courageous among the crew would make a game of tiptoeing near for a better look. It was a matter of some merriment among the mariners to see who could creep the closest. There was betting, and a fair amount of money changed hands until Ahlitah, irked at having his naps continually interrupted by the seamen’s chatter, finally favored one of the brave sailors with a nip on the leg. That put an end to the encroachment, though for the rest of the voyage the seaman involved wore the bite marks like a medal of honor.
They were several days out when the sky began to darken.
XXXII
INITIALLY, THE CAPTAIN FOUND NOTHING AMISS WITH THE sudden change in the weather. Although the Aboqua was a comparatively benign body of water, it was no stranger to the sudden storms that could affect any sizable sea.
The usual precautions were taken. The mainsail was reefed, hatches were battened down, the pumps were made ready, and all hands were sounded to stations. After being apprised of the situation and the possible dangers, passengers were left to their own devices. Ehomba and his companions could remain belowdecks, relatively dry and warm, or they could wander about above to experience the as yet undetermined vagaries of the weather. All that was asked of them was that they stay out of the way of working seamen.
The nearer the storm drew, the stranger became its aspect. Neither lightning nor thunder announced its impending arrival. Even more astoundingly, there was no wind. Though black as night, the approaching clouds did not writhe and roil. They simply came closer and closer, blotting out first the horizon and then the sky, like the unrolling of some vast, cumbrous black blanket.
Every man stood ready at his station. They were an experienced crew that had run safely before many storms, some mere rain squalls, others of impressive dimensions. But not a sailor aboard could recall ever encountering anything like this.
The dark clouds swept over the ship, enveloping it in a heavy, damp gloom. And still there was no wind. It was as if the storm entire consiste
d only of the eye of a hurricane, the ferocity of the tempest having absented itself elsewhere.
Uneasy now, the heretofore self-assured and confident mariners nervously eyed the baneful murk that had engulfed them. Where was the driving rain, the strobing lightning, the crashing seas that were the harbingers of any honorable storm? The ship drifted forward on calm seas, her stays barely rattling, her helm responding to the lightest of touches.
First they noticed the smell: a faint, fetid stink that portended no good. It was not the distinctive odor of rotting fish or seaweed. One mate declared that it reminded him of the ancient sewers of the abandoned city of Vra-Thet, whose people had been dead for thousands of years but whose decrepit essence still lingered in its multifarious catacombed depths. Another contended that the stench must have been carried hence on the wind from some great far-off battle in which tens of thousands had perished.
Ahlitah, whose sense of smell was infinitely more sensitive than that of any man aboard, wrinkled his nose so tightly it threatened to curl up and hide beneath his upper lip.
“What is it, cat?” Simna warily eyed the darkness that had swallowed the ship.
“Don’t know. Decay, putrefaction, rot. But of what I can’t tell.”
The swordsman turned to the tall southerner, who was staring out across the bow, one hand holding on to a trembling stay fashioned of finely corded rope.
“How about it, Etjole? As a herder of cattle you should be intimately acquainted with stinks. Any ideas?” The other man did not look back. “Etjole?” Taking a step forward, Simna grabbed his friend by the arm.
“What?” Blinking, Ehomba looked back at his companions. “I am sorry, Simna. Yes, I know what it is.”
“Then tell us,” Ahlitah prompted him. “I’m not familiar with the smells of the sea, but I know storms, and this reeks like no storm I have ever encountered.”
The herdsman’s mouth was set in a thin, tight line. “That is because this is not a storm.”
Cat and swordsman exchanged a glance. “It’s clouds, Etjole,” Simna avowed gently. “Racing black clouds usually herald the coming of a storm.”
“These are not clouds, either. They are the substance of what has engulfed this ship.”
Simna ibn Sind did not like the sound of that. Especially Ehomba’s use of the word “engulfed.” “Then if not a storm, what?”
Tilting back his head slightly, the herdsman looked upward, scanning the sky from side to side like someone standing at the bottom of a deep well searching for a ray of light. Having overheard, several sailors had left their posts and were hovering nearby, watching the rangy foreigner intently.
“It has been following me for a long time, gathering strength. I first saw it when I helped the People of the Trees defeat the slelves.”
Simna’s expression twisted in confusion. “The what?”
“It was before you and I met. You may have seen this also, friend Simna, when we fought Corruption. It gyred through the winds that helped to propel the Dunawake, and its essence was everywhere in the shattered lands of the Queppa. Especially in the Wall.” He was silent for a moment as he considered the lowing sky. “Ever since the time when I was with the People of the Trees it has been tracking me, waiting for the right moment.”
“The right moment?” Staring at the sky, Simna tried to peer through the raven clouds, to see something else where to the naked eye there appeared to be only arching blackness. “The right moment for what?”
Ehomba was as somber and serious as the swordsman had ever seen him. “To swallow.”
That conjured up an image even less palatable than the one that had been induced by the herdsman’s use of the word “engulfed.” “You mean this whatever-it-is is going to try and eat us?”
“It already has.” With unshakable calm, Ehomba studied the ominous dark. “We are inside it now. But it has not begun to swallow. It must be stopped before it can.”
“Hoy, right, I am in agreement with you there, bruther.” Wide-eyed but undaunted, the swordsman beheld their surroundings anew. Had anything changed since the black clouds had first enveloped them? Yes, everything had grown even darker, black as the inside of a chunk of coal. And it was pressing tight upon them, congealing like oil, a cloying, oleaginous mass that was acquiring more weight and substance than was natural for an honest cloud even as they spoke.
A sailor struck out at a limb of murk as it threatened to crawl up his arm. At the blow the gloom broke apart, but the pieces hung in the air, ebony wisps floating in a sable duskiness. Around the ship, a deathless night was descending, threatening to overwhelm and suffocate everyone on board. Sailors brushed at themselves, and cursed in frustration, but their efforts were proving increasingly futile. It was like trying to fight a cloud, a shadow, and that shadow was growing stronger by the minute. Stronger, and all-consuming.
Simna flailed at the deepening gloom as if assailed by giant, ephemeral black bugs. It was midmorning, but not a splinter of sunshine penetrated the ambient obscurity that had enveloped them. Ahlitah snapped at the lazily coiling lengths of deeper blackness that curled around his muscular form like indigo snakes. They broke apart, re-formed, and drew strength and sustenance from the deepening shadow all around them.
“What is it?” Like the rapidly panicking crew, Simna was brushing and slapping furiously at the terrifying blackness. “By Gidan’s eyeteeth, what is it?”
“Eromakadi.” Ignoring the suffocating blackness that swirled around him and threatened to invade his ears, his eyes, his mouth, Ehomba held tight to the rigging. “Eater of light. It consumes the light around us as well as the light that is life that emanates from us.”
“From us?” Next to the swordsman, the litah was tiring as he struggled to do battle against something without substance. His jaws were still mighty, his teeth still sharp, but it is hard to take much of a bite out of an evanescence.
“Our thoughts, our souls, the way we project our animate being into the world. Life is light, Simna, and the eromakadi cannot stand light. Sometimes they are weak and scattered, sometimes potent and powerful. The eromakadi are why bad things happen to good people. Their allies are pestilence and war, bigotry and ignorance. A tiny eromakadi will flock to a contemptuous sneer, a larger one to a gang beating, a great and more powerful one still to a politician’s lies. This one has grown especially focused.”
Much of what his friend declaimed made no sense to Simna. It was babble and gibberish of the most impenetrable philosophical kind. But whatever it was, the darkness closing tight around them was real enough. He had never been afraid before because his fears had always assumed physical shape and form. Anything that would respond to a sword could be dealt with. But this—it was like trying to fight air.
As he spun about and flailed madly against the insistent, encroaching gloom, he saw Ehomba climb up onto the bowsprit and stand facing the silently boiling blackness, alone. As the swordsman looked on, his lanky friend methodically removed his clothing and let it fall to the deck behind him. Naked, a lean and slender scarecrow of a man who looked even slimmer devoid of his simple raiment, the herdsman braced himself against a pair of stays and spread his arms wide as if invoking the sky.
The frantic crew ignored him. Those among them who saw what was happening thought he had gone mad, and not a few expected to join the tall passenger in madness at any moment. Because the final blackness was closing in tight around them, suffocating sight and sound and thought, if not yet heaving, straining lungs. Could a man be suffocated while still breathing?
Etjole Ehomba stood alone on the bowsprit, detached from the rest of humanity. Stood there by himself, and inhaled.
His chest expanded. Simna could hear it, even above the cries and wails of the raving crew. The sound was that of an ordinary man inhaling deeply, but what happened next was anything but ordinary.
Tiny wisps of blackness began to drift backward, and not of their own volition. They vanished into Ehomba’s wide-open mouth, sucked down, away, a
nd out of sight. More voluminous coils of gloom followed, straining to sustain their position but unable to resist. They too disappeared into the innards of the herdsman. And all the while Ehomba continued to inhale, not pausing to breathe normally, his chest distended in a steady, unvarying inhalation.
For the first time since the ship had been overtaken by the darkness, wind assailed its mast and spars and deck. Gusts arrived forcefully from over the bow, but also from abeam and from athwart the stern. It howled down out of the sky, and up from the supporting surrounding waters.
Ehomba never paused, never faltered. He inhaled, and inhaled, and in so doing sucked up that all-encompassing gloom and shadow as if it were essence of cinnamon and myrrh, drawing it all down into him, into somewhere within himself that Simna could not begin to imagine. And still the herdsman did not stop to breathe. Clinging exhaustedly to the rail for support, Simna looked on and wondered at the southerner’s stamina. How long could he maintain the suction, keep up the pace? Would what he inhaled fill him up until he exploded, or was it after all nothing more than evil air, a malignant atmosphere that in actual gist amounted to no more than a desolate burp?
Light appeared above the ship: healthful, heartening, natural sunshine. The crew saw it, felt it fall upon them, and set up a ragged cheer. And still Ehomba continued his unnatural insufflation, until the last of the blackness had vanished, drawn deep down within himself. Only then did he close his mouth, give a slight shiver, slump, and fall backwards, limp as a child’s cheap ragdoll, onto the hard deck.
Simna was at his side in an instant, and Ahlitah as well, the big cat looming anxiously over the fallen herdsman. Solicitous members of the crew crowded close, wanting to help, until an angry Simna ordered them to stand back and give the fallen herdsman some air.
Putting a hand beneath his friend’s head, Simna raised it gently. “Come on, Etjole—breathe! Open your mouth and breathe. Drink in the fresh air of the sea and clear your lungs of that murderous blight.” He jiggled the head slightly. “Breathe, damn you!”
Carnivores of Darkness and Light: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 1 Page 33
