by Scott Hale
“But it seemed Alexander Blodworth had his own intentions,” Faolan said. “The apprentices are almost as well-read as their masters; it is not inconceivable that they would learn of the Worms of the Earth. After all, it was assassins from Six Pillars, pre-Penance, that had killed Victor Mors and most likely took his journals on the creatures.”
Vrana felt her throat constrict. She dared not close her eyes, for she knew of the terrible images waiting in the dark there. “What of the Red Worm?” she managed to say, trying to think of anything but the pit.
Anguis rubbed his face in contemplation. “As of right now, there is little we can do. Penance must lay claim to the Worm, sustain it with bloodshed, or it will die. If they do wish to accept responsibility—not blame; that’s something else entirely—then Eldrus will be forced to respond, if they haven’t already.”
“‘The Red Worm stood high above the ground, raining gore upon the land, and the creatures of the land ate its bounty and were thankful for it,’” Faolan quoted, which was most certainly a passage from Victor Mors’ writings.
Vrana slid her hands under her mask and rubbed her temples. “Where is Eldrus in all this? Jakob, he said that King Edgar hated Penance, that it was strange for him to let Penance’s convoy pass over the Divide to get to Geharra.”
“That is strange,” Nuctea remarked. “Perhaps you have heard so little of Eldrus because King Edgar has had little to do with the affairs of the land of late.”
Faolan yawned, resting her chin on her hand. “Two years ago, there was a rebellion, a group led by a man whose family was butchered by the King’s men. The man was said to have been killed, too; yet, he returned from the grave and marched upon the city with a group of the oppressed from the Heartland towns and villages.”
“We did not intervene,” Anguis continued for the Wolf. “We were curious to see how the events would unfold. In the end, however, the group was put down, and the man vanished, likely into the Keep’s deepest cell. The rebellion made the King and his advisor wary. But there have been whispers of a secret alliance between Eldrus and Penance.”
Nuctea nodded. “Yes, there have.”
“King Edgar may be more involved than we thought,” Faolon added.
“This note,” Anguis said, opening it and reading it quickly, “you have read it, yes?”
Vrana didn’t respond.
“What do you make of it?” Anguis handed the note to Faolan, who read it and passed it to Nuctea.
“You… help the Corrupted,” Vrana said, her tone accusatory.
“We help Nora,” Nuctea corrected, sliding the note into a small pocket. “It seems she’s willing to help you as well.”
Vrana looked at the obsidian boulder, its surface shifting like that of an ocean. “It seems I’ll need it.”
“She’ll make good on her word, Vrana,” Faolan said. “If you still wish to destroy the Witch, we know of a place that may interest you.”
“Where?” she asked as she covered the scars on her arm from the Horror of the Lake. “The Elys, isn’t it? She’s been in that area multiple times, and the stories they tell… it sounds like her. I would’ve stopped, I would’ve gone to the center, but I had R’lyeh.”
Anguis stretched his legs and said, “The center of the Elys is home to the Inferi; it’s covered in fields of the Gift of Sleep. I do not doubt what has happened to you, but there are many stories of the Elys; and oftentimes, it’s because someone has wandered too close to the center.”
“For the living, the Gift of Sleep is a hallucinogenic,” Vrana said. “She was there, though. I think it’s worth investigating.”
“It is,” Anguis agreed. “We’ll be sending a team to the remnants of Alluvia. Several will be assigned the task of investigating the center of the Elys.”
“Okay,” Vrana said, nodding. “Then, what are you guys talking about?”
“It was Mara who first informed us of the Witch, and it was Mara who reminded your mother about the books she’d found. She met one of the Witch’s creations on a bridge outside the small town of Nachtla.” Faolan held the side of her white robe to keep it from the wind. “There is a house at the center of Nachtla the Witch was said to haunt. Mara had already lost interest in the tale when she learned this, and at the time, we hadn’t a reason to pursue the truth of the claim.”
“Where is Nachtla?” Vrana asked, having never seen it on the village map, which didn’t mean much of anything as the elders, up until this point, had been constantly changing it.
“South of the Nameless Forest, east of Cathedra, near the sea. Its people abandoned the town for Cathedra and Gallows fifteen years ago. The yield was poor, and the air oppressive.”
They want me to leave, to be rid of me should the Witch return, Vrana thought, but I can’t leave Aeson or my mother, not yet. And R’lyeh? She’ll need me.
Anguis stood up, and Faolan and Nuctea followed his example. “We have not heard from Deimos, Lucan, or Serra, but we do not worry about their wellbeing. If any flesh fiends found their way into the sewers, Serra will make short work of them. As for Deimos and Lucan, posing as soldiers of Penance will be amongst the easiest of their accomplishments.”
Vrana nodded, standing up. She had not expected news of her companions, but it comforted her to hear that the elders were confident in their abilities. She scratched her legs, which were irritated from the grass, and picked away the little black ants that were scurrying across her chest. She didn’t feel as though she had contributed to the meeting in a meaningful manner, and the purpose of it was lost on her. Until…
Anguis stepped forward, took Vrana by the shoulders, and leaned in close enough so that she could see his pale face beyond the skull of his mask. “We have not heard from Deimos, Lucan, or Serra, but we must continue on without them. We encourage you to seek out Nachtla but painfully implore you to go much farther.”
“What do you mean?” Vrana tried to pull away but was unable. She looked to Nuctea and Faolan, but they were gone. She looked beyond Anguis and saw that the wall of roots around them was unraveling fast.
“There is an island two miles off the coast of the Nameless Forest,” he hissed, “in the center of the Widening Gyre, the Sailor’s Bane. On this island, our people have a village unknown to but a few, for the waters allow no trespassers.”
“There’s no village…” Vrana began to say, stopping herself, as she was all too aware of the elders’ talent for making things disappear. “Why are you telling me this?” she said, her hands scrambling to grab onto Anguis as she felt the ground below her feet give way.
“Because you are invested, persistent, and trustworthy,” he appealed. “Because the only other person in this village who truly knows of the horrors of Geharra is a traumatized thirteen-year-old girl.”
Vrana cried out as the garden melted around her, like a painting left out in the rain. She felt Anguis release her, and, afraid that she may fall into fathomless space beneath them, she held onto him tighter, hugging him as a scared child would a father. “I can’t do that again. I can’t see that again,” she lied.
“You won’t have to,” he said as he eased her onto the ground. Once again, she was at the entrance of the garden of the elders, the back of their house a few feet away. “It is our village, yes, but if another Worm will be born to this earth, it will be from there. No one will force you should you choose not to go, but this will not be like Geharra.” He released her. “The chamber below the village must be sealed in the event Eldrus or Penance learns of its location.”
Vrana gasped as her lungs burned for air. “And if I say no?” she managed to ask.
“Then, regretfully, another will be recruited. You’ve always a choice Vrana,” he said, bowing slightly, “even if it is the illusion of one.” He deliberated for a moment, scratched his neck. “You now know more than most in our tribe. If you go to the island and do this for us, you will know even more.”
Vrana swallowed words of insult so that she could take the bai
t. “Like what?”
Anguis leaned in and whispered this into Vrana’s ear: “Why we aid Nora, and why her arm is free of Corruption. Why so few of our people are born each year, and what we’ve decided to do about it.” He pushed his mask against hers, to be sure no one else could hear. “You will know where we’ve come from and where we’ve been. You will know why the flesh fiends have become myth, and why it is best for them to stay that way.”
CHAPTER XXVI
“Who the fuck does he think he is?” Vrana shouted, her voice, muffled by her mask, carrying through the tunnel beneath the Archive. “What am I supposed to say to that? Oh, no, I’m sorry. Not interested. That sounds neat and all, but it’s not really my kind of thing. What the fuck?”
Aeson lifted up his mask and held it at his side. A bat fluttered by, chirping frantically in pursuit of a meal too small to be seen. “They’re very good at getting people to do things for them, but in general, they don’t lie.”
“Oh,” Vrana said, throwing her hands into the air, “well, that makes all the difference. ‘You will know where we’ve come from and where we’ve been.’” She shook her head, disgusted. “You can’t say no to something like that.”
Aeson nodded, biting his fingernail. He looked at her for a moment and then said, “Why are you so angry? You’ve always wanted to leave Caldera.”
Vrana clenched her teeth. “I’m more offended than anything else.”
“The island exists, Vrana,” Aeson said. He ran his fingers through his hair, slapped his neck; a cave spider crawled along his knuckles before leaping into the shadows. “I hate these damn things,” he said, massaging the reddening mark it left.
“Thanks for telling me about it, the island,” Vrana retorted. “Also, it would have been nice to have been prepared for the Worms.”
“Vrana, that’s not fair. How did I know it would be a Worm? And the island? I just found out about it while you were gone,” he said softly. “I wish that I could tell you more, but I can’t. You know I can’t. And as much as I would love to ask you to stay, to never go back out there, to never leave the village again…” He raised the skull and lowered it onto his head. “I would never do that to you. You’d hate me for it. And you’d be right to.”
Vrana bit her lip. For all her ire, she could not help but admit to herself that the thought of returning to the field excited her. “Just as it would be wrong of me to ask you to leave this place, to do something else—to tell me everything,” she grumbled.
“How you’ll reach the island is beyond me: Hundreds of boats have tried to sail those waters in the past, and each was broken on the rocks.” Aeson laughed. “I couldn’t even say what the island is called or where it falls exactly on a map; that’s how little I know about the place.”
“They mentioned a chamber, some area where they believe there’s another Worm. They said I could seal it. Is that possible?”
Aeson exhaled, bewildered. “It must be.”
“One person, though,” Vrana said as she became fixated on the glowing, yellow rocks embedded in the wall, as they dimmed and brightened and dimmed once more, “doesn’t seem enough.”
“They sent four to Geharra, and that’s a massive city. The village on the island must be much smaller. By the elders’ logic, the mathematics makes sense.” Aeson waited for Vrana to laugh.
She didn’t. “You don’t seem all that worried about me. Does that make me a bitch for wishing that you were?”
“If I thought falling apart would make you stay, I would be in a million pieces right now.”
“Fair enough,” Vrana said, carefully resting her head against Aeson’s chest, minding the beak of her mask so as to not gore him. “You would stop me if you didn’t think I could do this, right?”
“I’d try,” Aeson said shakily.
At nightfall, Vrana returned home, where she found Bjørn exiting through the front door, her armor thrown over his shoulders. When she asked him what he was doing, he wrapped his massive arms around her, squeezed until she felt deflated, and told her he was not surprised she’d survived the ordeal. She thanked him, said that she had missed him, but only a little, and asked the Bear what he was doing putting his paws all over her armor.
“Everything, everything is a mess. This will take weeks to clean,” he complained, though she knew he had been secretly looking forward to this moment ever since she left.
“I have a few days, at best.”
“Going on a vacation, eh? You’ve just come back.”
“There’s more to be done.”
Bjørn nodded and belched, the sound sending what appeared to be of one of Anguis’ snakes slithering into a nearby bush. “That’s wrong of them; you’ve just initiated. Don’t let them wear you down like those masks of theirs.”
Vrana kicked a stone and sent it soaring toward the center of Caldera. “I want to,” she said. “I want to go.”
“Aye, you’re so convincing, girl. Will you be fighting flesh fiends this time, too? Or will it be one of those Worm things I keep hearing about?”
It was the elders with whom he was aggravated, not her. “It won’t be like Geharra.”
“And Geharra wasn’t supposed to be like Geharra,” Bjørn said, spitting in the direction of the house of the elders.
Trying to lighten the mood, Vrana said, “And this is coming from the same man who stared Death in the face?”
The Bear barely laughed. “Stepped aside, didn’t It? You don’t have to prove anything to these people.” He held out his arm, gesturing to the village. “Not after what I heard them say about you because of the Witch.”
I’d almost forgotten, she said to herself, finding that, once again, she had too many things to take into consideration and not enough time or willpower to process them. “I’m not trying to prove anything,” she snapped. “I won’t be able to sleep knowing that someone else is doing what I started.”
“Penance started this, girl.”
“You know what I mean, damn it,” she said, feeling herself go red in the face. “I don’t… I don’t want to see what I saw in Geharra ever again. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to avoid it.”
“How did it happen? How was the Red Worm brought to be?” Bjørn shifted his weight to one leg and stared at her accusingly. “I don’t mean the sacrifices either.”
“The necklace,” Vrana began, “there was a necklace; it was a key of sorts. I found it during my third trial, carried it with me. I just wanted to figure out what it was. I had it in my hand, and it fell into the pit. That’s… how it happened.”
“So you dropped it?” he said, the muscles in his neck tensing.
“I did,” Vrana said, trailing off. Is he blaming me? Why? Her eyes felt large, heavy with the tears that only surface when one disappoints those whose opinions truly matter. But it wasn’t me, was it? The necklace wanted me to let go.
“Do you blame yourself?”
Do I? “No, I don’t.”
“I hope you’re telling me the truth, girl,” Bjørn said, eying her suspiciously. “Guilt will guide you to the grave, if you let it.”
“I gave you my reasons, old man,” Vrana said, stepping up to him, the mountain of muscle and scars.
“So you did.” He knocked her back playfully. “Where’s my bow?”
“What bow?”
“The one you absconded with, the one you just had to have.”
By the time the cloud of dust cleared around Bjørn, Vrana had already disappeared inside the house, locking the door behind her. Her timing was impeccable, for just as her stomach had finished growling, Adelyn emerged from another room with several plates filled to their edges with food. The smell of the rice, cooked meat, and vegetables made her salivate like a dog, and like a dog, she hurried after her mother, begging for scraps.
“Hey,” R’lyeh said weakly, waving at Vrana.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” The Raven closed the gap between them and took the girl’s hand. “You look a little better than be
fore.”
“I do?” she said, grateful for the compliment. “Thanks.”
“What kind of nasty potions is she making you drink?” Vrana asked as her mother set the table quietly.
“Oh, I don’t mind them,” R’lyeh claimed, though her pained face suggested otherwise.
“That’s right,” Adelyn chimed. “She doesn’t mind them because they are good, and good for her. Don’t pay this one any attention, R’lyeh,” she said, taking off her mask and sitting down beside the Octopus. “She was the pickiest child when she was little.”
“She doesn’t seem that way now,” R’lyeh said, snickering as Vrana ripped off the raven’s head and began to shamelessly shovel food into her mouth.
Vrana looked up at her mother, food pasted to her face and on the tips of her hair, swallowed what she was chewing, and smiled grotesquely. Once she began to feel the consequences of her gluttony take form inside of her, she leaned away from the table, wiped her face with her arm, and apologized to R’lyeh for her lack of manners. R’lyeh accepted her apology and set upon her portions ravenously. Vrana’s mother could not help but laugh as she sipped on a cup of wine, pleased with her patient’s progress and her daughter’s presence.
“They, the elders, they want me to leave again,” Vrana murmured from her food-induced coma. Her eyes shifted lazily to R’lyeh, who was struggling to stay awake.
“I know,” her mother said, finger dancing around the rim of her cup.
Vrana pursed her lips and said, “What don’t you know?”
Her mother looked back at her, confused.
“Do they tell you everything? Why’d you let me go north when you were so willing to let me believe that it more or less didn’t even exist?”
“That was a selfish mistake; the elders were very convincing.” Adelyn crossed her legs, leaned forward on both elbows. “Our numbers are low, and preservation of our young is more important than ever.” She thought for a moment, took a drink, and said, “Did you want me to stop you? Slap your hand like a child and say no?”
