by Scott Hale
“Vrana!” R’lyeh cried.
The Raven lifted her gaze from the ground. Her neck snapped forward as the flesh fiend threw itself against her. In an instant, all their cautious efforts were undone. Vrana plummeted into the sea, her lungs pleading for the air that had been pushed out of them. She felt the ax leave her grasp, felt the mask leave her head. She felt the flesh fiend climbing up her body, marveling with its fingers the contours of her figure. As the fiend’s mouth found her hipbone, she grasped its hair, closed her legs around its neck, and twisted. The creature dug its nails into her back, gnawed at her stomach. She howled with pain as the water warmed with her blood.
Vrana could feel the pull of the current as their bodies brushed against the ocean floor. She shoved her thumbs into the flesh fiend’s eyes and felt them burst; they leaked like jelly from the dented skull. The creature released its grip, and Vrana saw in that moment she could easily reach the beach. But before she could start swimming, the flesh fiend was on her again, unimpeded by its lack of sight. It ripped off a piece of flesh that had been attached to its chest and draped it over Vrana’s face.
A new mask, she thought, feeling lightheaded, better suited for us all perhaps. The flesh fiend drew back the flap of skin, bending Vrana’s neck until it seemed as though it would snap. She bit at the skin, which was unusually thick, and spat out bits of it, until it tore in half in the fiend’s hands.
She pushed the flesh fiend off her. Struggling against the tide, she thrust herself forward, using the floor of the ocean for momentum. Sensing the creature behind her, she grabbed a large piece of coral and, as she turned, swung it, catching the fiend in the head and knocking it away. Vrana tried to take hold of the ground once more but found that her arms would not do as she willed and that the sunlight, bright as it was, could not stop the darkening of the world.
CHAPTER XXX
Vrana smoothed out the wrinkles in her soft, blue dress and stared at her soft, white hands as though they were not her own—and they weren’t. She turned in her seat, which creaked and tipped slightly to the left, and rested her elbows on the wooden table beside her. Her nose twitched as she caught the scent of something baking nearby; though when she looked at the stove, she saw that there was nothing inside. She noticed the long, dark shadows retreating across the kitchen floor and was glad that the helicopters had gone.
“Mom?” Vrana heard a voice call from somewhere in the house.
She stood up, putting her feet to the humming floor, and moved hastily out of the kitchen, down a dim hallway, and into an empty living room. On the furthest wall, just beyond the sun-faded couch, a television buzzed loudly, the screen covered in white noise. Picture frames along the mantle were face down, knocked over by a great tremor or an angry hand.
“Mom?” she heard a voice shout out once more.
Panicked, though she didn’t know why, Vrana rushed up the stairs, holding on tightly to the crayon covered bannister as she climbed. Again, the voice asked for its mother. Vrana came to the second floor, rounded the corner, ignored the door farther down the hall, which was hanging off its hinges, and stepped into a child’s room.
“What’s the matter?” She looked down upon the boy whose voice she’d heard.
The small child was surrounded by toys that had fallen in battle to the spikey, armor-clad figure he held in his hand. His golden hair was uncombed and glowed ever so slightly in the sunlight. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the boy, other than that he was not getting the amount of attention he felt he deserved.
“Is everything okay?” Vrana heard herself say, the voice coming out of her throat choked, the concern in it feigned.
The boy looked up at her and said, “I saw something outside.”
“What did you see, sweetheart?” Vrana put one knee to the ground, one hand through the child’s unkempt hair. Vrana had felt motherly before, in her encounters with the Holy Child and R’lyeh, but what she felt now as this body of hers comforted the boy was anything but motherly.
The boy made a bubble with his spit and set the action figure down. “A big monster,” he mumbled, looking over his shoulder to the octagon-shaped window beside his bed. He turned his head towards Vrana and said, “When’s my real mommy coming home?”
Vrana’s body launched forward, her hands in search of the child’s neck so as to break it. Before she could reach him, though, the house started to shake violently. She stumbled backward, into the hallway, where the bloodied body of an old man had rolled out.
“Get away from her, Alexei!” the old man croaked, a waterfall of blood pouring over his lips. “She’s dangerous! She’s a monster!”
Vrana felt a hateful panic swell in her chest. She looked back into the boy’s room and saw long, dark shadows pouring through the window. They stretched across the floor, like black limbs aching to be cracked, and slithered toward Alexei. Vrana felt herself rise off the ground, the tips of her toes barely touching the carpet beneath her. She felt the need to say something, yell something, but before she could, the boy’s room collapsed upon itself, crushing Alexei where he sat.
“No!” Vrana heard herself shout. She stumbled back in the hall as pieces of the ceiling were torn away above her. She looked up, floated up through the falling debris; pushed through the attic, through the buckled supports and cracked shingles. She pushed through the roof, into the air, where she stood there suspended, horrified, as god moved across the land, undeterred by the humans that were desperately trying to kill it.
Vrana blinked, and then she was no longer in the house. She was somewhere else, somewhere terrible and gray, where black spires twisted out of the rocky soil, rising high as though to puncture the weeping sky. This is the Void, she realized as she moved formlessly through the wasteland, so am I alive? Did they save me? With no landmark in sight, she floated aimlessly from craters to quarries, over unearthed catacombs and endless chasms, until a bright, blinking light drew her attention to an isolated valley.
“What is this?” Vrana whispered, rippling the air with her words.
She descended into the valley carefully, for it was infested with roaming swarms of countless black flies. Though she didn’t have a body to call her own, that didn’t mean they couldn’t see her; so she waited for an opening between the black waves. When one appeared, she hurried through, using the glow of the beacon she’d seen as her guide through the buzzing sea.
“What is this?” Vrana whispered as she found the floor of the valley, and the source of the light.
Anguis, Faolan, Nuctea; Deimos, Lucan, Serra; Nora, Jakob, Mag; Mara, the Holy Child, the Skeleton; Aeson, R’lyeh, Adelyn; and hundreds of others Vrana could not identify stood at the center of the beacon. With every blink of the light, another joined the ghostly congregation, stepping out of nothingness to stare blankly at those before and beside them. Vrana called out to those whom she recognized and those that bore the skulls of her tribe, but except for a shift in the flies above, there was no response.
I know they’re not real, Vrana thought, wanting to touch Aeson to be sure, but why are they here? Drawing closer, Vrana could see running from each individual a cord. Spotted and thick, it hung in the air like an umbilicus, connecting heads to hearts and hearts to hands. Every time the beacon pulsated and another was added to the gathering, the cord would slither out from under the tongue of someone nearby and force itself into the newly indoctrinated. I know they’re not real, the Raven thought again, cringing as the cord slipped into the penis of a newcomer.
As she turned away from the sickening spectacle, she realized that the valley had gone silent. The hungry swarm had vanished and left behind in its wake a clear view of the tattered sky. “Somebody wake me up, somebody wake me up,” she repeated to herself, the sides of the valley shedding pebbles and rocks as it trembled. “Somebody wake me up if I’m not already dead. Somebody wake me up…”
Vrana paused in her ascent as she heard these words pour over the sharp precipice: “Without a tongue, o
ne can speak freely, I imagine.”
The Ashen Man stood above her, millions of black flies rushing out of every orifice of his body. He held his arms at his sides, a guard tasked to keep watch over his terrible Maiden’s domain.
He’s here to help, she thought, like he helped that night in Nora.
“Better to die here,” the Ashen Man said, his voice rumbling like thunder throughout the Void, “so that she may not reap what you’ve sown.”
All at once, the flies massed and threw themselves at Vrana. Though she knew she had no hands, she tried to protect herself with them all the same. And then there they were, forming before her, followed by arms and shoulders and then her stomach, which was wrapped tight with bloody bandages. And with the appendages came a hot, nauseating pain she could’ve done without.
The flies set upon her like vultures to meaty bone, spitting on her new skin to melt it. Vrana swatted at the insects, took large handfuls of them and crushed them in her fists; they continued unabated, fighting for a place in the dark of her screaming mouth. The Ashen Man reached his hand through the black cloud, the hint of his form among his million minions, and with all the hate he had for her…
“Vrana!”
The Raven sat upright, and then lay back down, the burning pain in her abdomen too great to withstand. She could still taste the sea, which was comforting, as it meant she’d not been asleep for too long. Her hands felt at the bed upon which she lay and the sheets soaked with her sweat. Figures moved around her in the dimly lit room, talking in whispers. Certain she’d spotted R’lyeh, she called out to the girl but received no response. More creatures passed through Vrana’s field of vision—a Fish and a Bird; an Eagle, Eel, and an Ape—but they, too, seemed deaf to her pleas.
“Somebody answer me,” Vrana said groggily, “or I’m going to fucking kill all of you.” She turned her head as she heard someone approaching the bed. “Speak up, right now.”
“How are you feeling?” Mara said, her image wavering as Vrana’s eyes struggled to adjust to the light.
“You need a better way to get to the island,” Vrana recommended. She tried to sit up again but couldn’t.
Mara laughed. “We have our ways.” The bed sank as she took a seat. “But everyone has to cross the Gyre their first time. You did well.”
“Did I?” Vrana rubbed her face hard and wished for the comfort and privacy of her mask. “Why was there a flesh fiend in the ocean?”
“The better question is why are there so many in the ocean?” Mara’s mask of centipede carapaces shuddered with undead life. “Rest, and when you’ve rested, we’ll see to your task.”
Vrana’s hand shot out and found Mara’s. “Where’s R’lyeh?”
“Sleeping, and eating, and nervously pacing around the village, waiting for you to get better.” Mara patted the top of Vrana’s hand and said to someone, “Give her the Dreameater potion. This one’s dreamed enough.”
When Vrana awoke again, she found that the curtains in the room had been pulled back, allowing the warm sunlight and coastal sounds to fill the space. She couldn’t determine how long she’d been asleep, but saw from the healing of her stomach wound that it must have been at least a few days. Putting her feet to the floor, she stood up without need of support and made her way to the glowing outline of a door.
Vrana sighed, wiped away the dried drool at the edge of her mouth, and pushed the door open. Beyond, she found the small, arboreal village of Lacuna, its people too distracted with their daily tasks to take notice of the half-conscious Raven. Many of the homes had been built into the trees or the ground itself—a precautionary measure taken to avoid giving sailors a reason to brave the Bane. Wild animals, which were curiously absent during their initial arrival, roamed the village freely, the pigs, monkeys, and goats oblivious or uncaring of their eventual fate.
“Where are you, R’lyeh?” Vrana squinted, catching a glimpse of a field of crops beyond. She put one foot over the threshold, but before going further, she saw at the corner of her eye a familiar shape. “Ah,” she said, following the wall away from the door to a chair bearing her mask, “my old friend.”
Vrana donned her mask, which smelled and felt as though it had been thoroughly washed. After searching the room and finding the rest of her belongings missing, she emerged from the house filled with purpose. She hurried down the hill upon which the house sat, a cloud of dirt trailing behind her. She studied the masks of the people as she went, none of which appeared as though they were indigenous to the area. This is an ark, she thought to herself, passing a Hound, a Bear, and an Ice Dweller. Nobody truly lives here.
Vrana took another look at her surroundings, trying to determine where the leaders of Lacuna would reside, for that was where she would find Mara, R’lyeh, and Blix. There were several tree houses, each of which were impressive and naturally hidden from prying eyes, but they seemed too unstable to hold people of importance. She considered that the elders may have established themselves underground but saw by the traffic moving in and out of the tunnels with supplies and tools that this was unlikely as well. So she turned her attention to the homes that circled the yard where she stood, which were neither large nor remarkable.
“Hiding in plain sight,” Vrana mumbled, moving from porch to porch, window to window, “just like this village. Just like Kistvaen. Just like we ought to do.”
“What’s that?”
Vrana turned around, heart racing, and saw Mara standing behind her. “Where’s R’lyeh? And Blix?”
“Resting,” Mara said, picking dried blood out from under her fingernails. “I don’t remember your bird being so thin.”
“The Witch had her hold on him,” Vrana said, her words slow and slurred. She looked up at the blazing sun and found herself sagging beneath it. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
Mara, sensing Vrana’s discomfort, took her hand and said, “We’ll see to him. There are medicines here that cannot be found on the mainland.” Mara tightened her grip on Vrana, dabbed at a spot of sweat on the Raven’s chest with a piece of her shirt. “Walk with me, because I know if I ask you to get back into bed, I’ll just be wasting my breath.”
Mara led Vrana around the village proper, which extended no further than the circle of houses she’d stood in earlier. At the outskirts of Lacuna, there were fields of crops that shouldn’t have been: The conditions were hardly agreeable to the corn, wheat, rice, tomatoes, potatoes, and berries that not only grew in the fields, but among each other as well. At first, Vrana thought this to be the work of a spellweaver, but the fact that there was a Worm asleep on the island suggested otherwise.
“The storms must be terrible,” Vrana said as they left the field for a clearing and then a cliff, where the blue ocean yawned beyond.
“Not at all.” Mara finally released Vrana’s hand, which had grown clammy and dependent on the woman. She brought the Raven to the cliff and invited her to sit on its edge. “It rains just enough and never more.”
Vrana bit her lip as she sat down and threw her legs over the rocky edge, the cool breeze enveloping her. “Where is the Worm?” she asked bluntly.
“Deep down, in the mining tunnels.” Mara nudged Vrana. “Don’t worry, the Corrupted didn’t get very far. The chamber is easy enough to find.”
“How long…” Vrana covered her mouth as a wave of nausea crashed against the shore of her stomach. “How long did you live with the Corrupted?”
“Small talk?” Mara laughed.
“Everything has been moving so fast since my second trial.” She shrugged, ripped a root from the cliff, and flung it. “I don’t know. I just want this to be over.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, Vrana, but this isn’t going to be over anytime soon.” Mara poked at an emerald ant that had crawled onto her leg. “If it makes you feel any better, it doesn’t have to be you.”
“But it does,” Vrana insisted. “Deimos, Lucan, Serra… they are elsewhere. And the Witch… it has to be me.”
> “Anybody with half a brain and an empty pack could’ve brought the sealing stone here,” Mara contested.
“What are you trying to say?” Vrana asked, her voice cracking.
“Only that your decisions should be your own.” Mara picked up the ant, slid it under her mask, and ate it.
“Nobody forced me to come to this damn island.”
“Not even the elders?”
“No.” Vrana took a breath and refrained from calling Mara a bitch. “I made the choice. I brought the Witch to Caldera. I saw the Red Worm beneath Geharra. I made the decision to be here. I could die doing this…” Thoughts of Aeson pushed tears from her eyes. “I’m not going to risk my life just because somebody asked me to.”
Mara hummed and stood up, red imprints from the ground drawn onto her legs. “You’re good, but not that good. The world will go on without you.”
Vrana looked up at the Centipede, whom she was now certain had never known affection, and nodded. These were words of encouragement and advice disfigured by years of callousness and disappointment. “You didn’t answer my question,” Vrana said, once again taking Mara’s hand as she came to her feet.
“Ten years,” Mara said. “That’s how long I lived amongst the Corrupted. I left the day after I was initiated. Thought I could do better talking to the humans rather than killing them. I wasn’t the first to do it, but no one had done it as well and as long as I had.”
“You’re a talented woman but not that talented,” Vrana murmured, following Mara back into the fields.
“Exactly.” Mara stopped at a crossroads at the center of the field and took the path that led away from Lacuna. “I met a lot of people, made a lot of friends in high places. Put to the test the belief that our kind and the Corrupted could not bear children together.”
