by Scott Hale
Mara looked back as though to tell them it was safe to move forward but sighed instead. “Go, follow Blix,” she said, sounding defeated. She dropped her arm, raised her sword, and walked past Vrana and R’lyeh to meet the wailing shadows.
“What are you doing?” Vrana grabbed Mara’s arm.
The Centipede tugged away and laughed. “I’m not sacrificing myself, if that’s what you think.”
Mara uttered words that Vrana had never heard before, eldritch invocations that seemed to bloody the very throat through which they passed. Her body thinned, and flesh tightened around bone. She pulled her stomach in and released a primal cry that echoed across the temporary landscape.
Her mask began to shift as it had done in the past, but this time it didn’t remain atop her head; rather, it expanded and broke apart, each centipede crawling off in opposite directions, some down her spine, others across her arms, chest, and legs, where they dug into her skin, their carapaces now hers.
“What’s going on?” R’lyeh asked breathlessly as they ran after Blix, Mara growing smaller and smaller behind them.
Vrana ignored the girl, because she didn’t know how to answer her. More laughter; more wailing: The ocean sounded like a nursery overseen by a madman. The Raven craned her neck as she wiped away the snow that had formed in the sockets of her mask. An emerald mist swirled around Mara, its wispy fingers pushing into her mouth, eyes, and nose. The shadows were near enough to kill the woman; and with their bared fangs, silver and dripping, it seemed they had every intention to.
If Mara was going to die, it would be when she said so. She lifted her sword, the blade dripping with black oil, and stabbed it into the ground. But what happened next could not have been what she’d intended. Or perhaps it was.
Her body lifted off the ground and exploded.
Before Vrana and R’lyeh could comprehend what had happened, the Black Hour ended, and they were plunged into the warm and restless waters of the Sailor’s Bane.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Vrana was not going to lose the girl, not after everything they’d been through. She grabbed R’lyeh by the wrist and held on tightly as the ocean’s current pulled them under. She drew the Octopus close to her body, so that she could wrap her arms and legs around Vrana, and once she had, the Raven made for the surface.
Somewhere, something seemed to have thought they’d suffered enough, for when Vrana’s head broke through the waves, she saw that they were in the shallows of the sea. She dug her feet into the sand and plodded forward, too afraid to release R’lyeh should a cheated Death rise out of the waters to take her.
Images of Mara flashed through her head as she trudged toward the cove, the woman’s body tearing apart, giving to the shadows her blood and bones. Had Vrana ever witnessed someone die before, Corrupted notwithstanding? It had always been the aftermath, the grisly remains of a crime. She felt strange, empty; half expecting to find the woman still standing beside her, cold and calloused but alive.
Vrana dropped her ax on the beach and lowered R’lyeh to her feet. The girl took off her mask, slicked her hair back, and spat up the salt water sitting in her throat. Blix flew past them, leaving a trail of feathers to flutter in the moonlight, and landed on a fresh deadfall. Vrana tore limbs from the trees gathered on the shore, coveting the driest branches like gold. It would not be a frigid night, but they were drenched, and the Black Hour had taken all the warmth from their bodies.
“You were right.” R’lyeh sat on a dune, brought her knees to her chest, and held herself. “I should have stayed in Caldera.”
“Me too.” Vrana marched past R’lyeh, arms filled with the makings of a fire, to the inside of the cove. “Grab my ax.”
The girl did as she was told, tucking her weapons behind her belt and picking up Vrana’s. “Why did she do that?”
“I don’t know.” Vrana dropped the firewood at the center of the cove, scaring off several rock wraiths. “I don’t think it was intentional.”
“Me neither.” R’lyeh offered the ax to Vrana, but the Raven told her to set it down instead. “I don’t—” she swallowed her words, but they came back up, “—I don’t want to watch anyone else die.”
Would I be as composed as her if I’d seen all that she had? Vrana stole some stones from nearby and made a circle around the wood and kindling. “I’m sorry, R’lyeh.”
“It’s too much.” She was holding her mask by a tentacle, like a child would a stuffed animal by its arm. “Is it because you’re older?”
“What do you mean?” Vrana started to assemble the framework of a fire.
“It doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“It does.” Vrana shuddered as she still heard the sound of Mara being ripped apart. “But not much. I guess that’s good. I don’t know.” She sighed and fell back on her palms. “My mother said my father dying made me resilient.”
R’lyeh’s voice became a dry whisper as she said, “I didn’t know your dad…”
Vrana stood up quickly and looked upon her creation with disdain. “Disappeared into the Black Hour. That’s what some say.”
“And now you’ve been in it twice,” R’lyeh said, hand over her mouth. She cast her eyes to the ground, dug her feet into the sand. “I’m afraid that, if we go home, everything will get worse.”
Vrana gave no response as she wandered to the back of the cove, feeling her way along the rocks.
“Your mom was so nice to me, but lying there all day was unbearable. I only felt better when Anguis let me leave.” R’lyeh cleared her throat. “What are you doing, Vrana?”
“Listening. And looking,” she said, hands probing the darkness for the place Mara had emerged from when she and R’lyeh first happened upon the area. “She’d said there were other ways off the island and…”
Vrana slipped into a nook and found within earthenware and the beginnings of a tunnel now sealed. She hauled the pots and vases out one at a time, so that she could have a better look at their contents in the ghostly light of the moon. “This must run beneath the ocean, to Lacuna. I guess this is how some got off the island.”
“Do you think they made it?” R’lyeh treaded toward the Raven, Blix following close behind. “Do you think the Black Hour got them, too?”
Vrana patted the slab of stone that sat in front of the tunnel for secret switches, of which there were apparently none. She exited the nook and said, “Lacuna was kept hidden by the same spell that shrouds Caldera’s mountain. I bet you each boat had a spellweaver. I’m sure they made it out.”
“I hope so,” R’lyeh said, plopping down beside the pilfered goods. She removed the seals that held the contents inside the pots and vases and said with a grin, “Food.”
The Octopus warned Vrana that, although the meat was clearly cured and coated in additional preservatives, it may have been tainted. The Raven, thinking with her stomach rather than her mind, told R’lyeh that they should then take very small bites. After having their fill, they moved onto the other containers and found within three vials of fluid that would burst into flames when mixed. Wasting no time and holding the concoctions as far away from her body as possible, Vrana doused the wood she’d gathered and watched with immense satisfaction as they burned.
“This is nice,” R’lyeh said without emotion, chewing on the meat like a cow would grass. “Do you think Mara left this for us?”
Vrana shook her head and scooted closer to the fire.
“Did you hate her?” R’lyeh grunted as Blix flew past and plucked the meat from her mouth.
“I didn’t hate her, but I didn’t care for her either,” Vrana said. She smiled as Blix landed beside her to savor his catch: It was the first time she’d see him act like himself in a while. “I do wish she was here with us.”
R’lyeh sniffled. She tried to cover her eyes, but her tears fell too quickly to be hidden. “I’m sorry.”
“What is it?” Vrana leaned close to the girl.
“I need to tell you something, but I can’t
.”
Vrana nodded. She knew by the girl’s statement that she was hoping Vrana would coerce the information out of her, but instead she said, “When you’re ready.”
R’lyeh shook her head, dropped her hands, and let the fire dry her tears.
“I was going to keep this to myself, but I need your help.” Vrana noted R’lyeh’s change in posture as she dug into her bags. “From the Worm,” she said, taking the silver necklace out and holding it by its chain, the blue gem glowing in the firelight.
“Why… why did it give that to you?” R’lyeh stammered. “I thought you sealed it.”
“A necklace for a stone, a stone for a necklace.” Vrana dropped the piece of jewelry back into the bag and pulled it closed, for she feared having it out in the open for too long. “The necklace brought the Red Worm to life, and the stone sent the Blue Worm away. It wouldn’t let me leave unless I took it.”
“Does that mean the Red Worm’s stone is still somewhere in Geharra?”
“It must be,” Vrana said, not having considered this. “I wonder if that’s why Deimos sent Serra back: not only to kill the Crossbreed but to get the rock.”
“What are you going to do?” The girl’s eyes lingered on the bag where the necklace was stored.
Vrana shrugged as her crow cuddled up against her leg. “What should I do?”
Taken aback, R’lyeh murmured, “Oh, uh, I don’t know. You could toss it into the sea.”
“Considered it. But these things have a way of finding themselves in the wrong hands.”
R’lyeh agreed. “Could you give it to the elders?”
“I’d rather not.” Vrana took off her mask and put it in front of her. “That’s better.”
“If it’s with you, you’ll know it’s safe.” R’lyeh’s mouth hung open as she considered her next sentence. “At least, that’s what has worked for me,” she said, flashing an awkward smile.
Vrana closed her eyes, the dizzying warmth of the fire relaxing her body, causing her to nod off where she sat. She shook herself awake, wanting to return R’lyeh’s kind words, and found that the night had fled, chased away by the burning light of day. She sat up, having lain down at some point in the hours before, and wiped away the sand that had dried on her skin. She felt groggy, and then she felt numb as she heard the cries of a young girl ride in on the wind. She looked to where R’lyeh had been sitting and saw across the beach footprints leading out the cove, with hundreds of tiny black dots following them.
Dead flies.
Vrana put on her mask, grabbed her ax, and followed R’lyeh’s trail. She rounded the outside of the cove and headed up the slope that would give her a clear view of Nachtla. Screaming. She heard screaming now. Vrana’s heart pounded as her mind turned on her, flooding her with images of the girl’s lifeless corpse. It’s not her, she told herself, reaching the hilltop. It can’t be her.
But it was.
Across the dusty landscape, the Octopus sat, her legs crossed, and her hands in her lap, one bruised eye swollen shut, the other red and wide with fear. She was breathing hard, and when she saw Vrana, she started to shake her head weakly. Thin streaks of blood fell down her face from the hairless patch of tender flesh on her scalp.
“R’lyeh!” she yelled.
The girl’s head tipped back as her throat stretched and swelled. A cry of pain escaped her lips, and hundreds of black flies followed. R’lyeh fell over as the last of the insects cleared her lungs, the cloud surrounding her too dense to determine whether she was still breathing.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” said a man’s cold voice.
The Raven gripped her ax so tightly that the tendons in her forearm threatened to snap. Hatred would have her murder anything and everything that stood before her. She turned around slowly, only because she feared that, if she took her eyes off the cloud, R’lyeh would be stolen away to the Void.
The Ashen Man waited behind her, tensed and shivering, as though he was struggling to keep his place in this world. His hands were curled into fists, and they were bloodied up to the wrist. Close enough to touch him, Vrana saw that his body was rough, textured; he was covered in endless scars from countless years of mutilation. He had no smell about him, nor did it seem that his eyes, which were the color of smoke, granted him sight. The man didn’t appear to breathe at all, having likely lost the need for the function long ago.
Vrana readied her ax. “I’m going to kill you.”
The Ashen Man nodded. “Either way, something good will come of this.”
Words would not avenge R’lyeh, so Vrana swallowed her confusion and swung with all her might at the Ashen Man. He threw his arms in front of himself, absorbed the blow with flesh and bone, and pushed the Raven away. He groaned, held out his hands; dripping sores opened on his palms and sides and wept into the air hundreds of buzzing, black flies. Vrana went to throw her mask from her head, for she knew the insects would try to drown her in their bodies, but before she could, the Ashen Man took her by the right arm and broke it.
Vrana screamed as the terrible aching pain brought her to her knees, ax falling beside her. She bit down into her lip as the need to vomit became almost too great to bear. Images flashed through her mind, but they were not images she’d ever seen: images of the Ashen Man suspended above a boiling mire, before his skin had lost its earthly warmth to the cold gray of the Void.
“Why help us at Nora?” Vrana said through her teeth.
“Because she willed it.” The Ashen Man took a step towards her.
“Why kill us now?” Vrana leaned on her left side, hand inching towards the ax.
The Ashen Man went to one knee, flexing his bloodstained fingers. “Because I will it.”
Vrana fell to her side, grabbed the ax, and buried it deeply into the Ashen Man’s neck. The blade worked itself free as he stood up, thick tongues of brown blood spewing from the gash. Vrana pulled back, swung once more; the ax cut through the man’s ankle, sent his foot across the chapped earth. His ragged stump slammed into the ground, and he went to his knee again.
“Is she dead?” Vrana yelled, raising the ax into the air. The black cloud covering R’lyeh had yet to relent.
He didn’t answer.
Vrana brought the ax down upon the man. His arms shot out in front of him, and he caught the weapon by its handle and ripped it free from her grasp. The Ashen Man threw the ax away, sending it over the hill towards the beach. He tackled Vrana, crushing her broken arm under his weight. She punched him in the face, clawed at his milky eyes, but it was her weak arm. He put his hand over her mask and engulfed it in flies. Vrana closed her eyes, her mouth, and moaned as the insects’ wings and appendages worked at her lids and lips.
“You cannot kill her.” The Ashen Man moved his hands to Vrana’s neck and squeezed hard. “This way is better.”
Vrana’s throat constricted. She flailed wildly, kicking at the man’s stomach and digging her fingers into his wounds, pulling away chunks of flesh and muscle to no avail. She could feel her mind being ripped open, images that didn’t belong there cutting themselves into memory. She saw the Witch atop the Ashen Man in an Old World room, his hands bound to the posts of a bed, a smirk upon his face. She watched as the Witch pulled back the fabric of the Void, as the Ashen Man reached through and dragged back twin boys on a bridge too paralyzed by fear to flee.
“Fuck you,” Vrana spat with the last of her breath. She would not beg.
The Ashen Man put his knee into her stomach and then reeled backwards. Vrana gasped as the flies left her mask to tend to their master. She struggled to breathe, her throat almost too tight to let air through. She propped herself up on one arm and saw with thankful eyes her salvation.
R’lyeh stood behind the Ashen Man, the Cruel Mother’s talons dug deep into his shoulders. She pulled them downward, splitting his back open. He didn’t cry, nor did he flinch as she kicked him forward onto his face. She straddled him as he tried to turn over and hacked away at the back of his head.<
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“R’lyeh,” Vrana rasped.
The Ashen Man threw the Octopus off him, the white of his skull showing through the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, brown blood dripping from his mouth. His blind eyes searched the sky, and as the sound of beating wings fell upon him, the Horror of the Void said once more, “I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER XXXV
A black shape streaked across the mottled firmament and descended on the Ashen Man. Blix—it was Blix, and although he looked like a skeleton, it seemed his need to defend the girls had given him strength. The man screamed and howled as the crow’s claws and beak tore at his flesh, causing him to experience pain for the first time since the battle began. He continued to apologize to Blix as the bird pecked out his eyes and dug out his ocular cavities; his words slurred and eventually stopped as the crow pulled away parts of his brain.
“Blix.” Vrana whispered, still lying down; Nachtla in the distance sitting like a black crown atop her head.
The crow pushed away from the Ashen Man’s ruined body. He wavered for a moment, the matter of his brain dangling from his sockets, and then collapsed onto the ground.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” R’lyeh said, panting. She was covered in the man’s strange blood, and her swollen eye seemed to have worsened. She hobbled over to Vrana, wincing from the wound on her head. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“I thought you were dead.” Vrana took R’lyeh’s outstretched hand and came to her feet. Her broken arm hung limply at her side, throbbing excruciatingly. “What happened?”
“I’m an idiot,” she said, cringing. Without consideration, she embraced Vrana and put her head to the leather chest piece. “I woke up before you, heard something. I should have—but you were so tired. I don’t think he could reach us in the cove. We were too far from Nachtla.” She exhaled. “Are you okay?”
