SongWeaver

by Derek Moreland

  “I should… kill you,” Ven said, his voice thick. He couldn't think straight. The venom must have gotten deeper than he'd suspected. “Kill you for the Humans. Kill you for my… job.”

  But that sounded so hollow, now. Something he would have done a long time ago. Before the horror with the elf, the battle with the dwarves. Before dancing with Death and murdering his dearest friend. And this… creature, this pitiful wretch before him, crying its tears of blood… it could reach out and do the same to him, right? Even infected with the same venom, it could still swipe out with those claws and eviscerate Ven where he sat. But instead it held itself unmoving, Ven's blade inches from its throat. Was it surrendering? Or was it after a more permanent mercy?

  Kill it! The strange Voice in his head was louder now, more insistent, more familiar. Thunder rolled through his skull, his mind, leaving him gasping at the pain. Kill it because it disgusts you! Kill it because this world would be better without it! Kill it for the life you desire! Kill it because your hands hurt! Kill him because you can!

  His hands did hurt. They hurt quite a bit, even through the numbing toxicity of the devil venom. The Voice was right on point with that one. And the sword was heavy, and getting heavier. “I could kill you,” Ven slurred. Tired. He was so tired. “I could… I could make it all go away.” The Voice. That weird, incongruous voice. It had called the Wendigo a he, hadn't it? His ear canals began to bleed.

  “You… were a Human once? You were a man.” The creature gave no sign of understanding. All it could muster was a whimper. “Wen… di… go....”

  “You were one of them. And you… fell. Something happened to you and you ended up… a monster.” Kill it! Kill it for glory, kill it for vengeance, kill it because you want to! Because you have to! Kill it! His head was an agony. “You kill because this… curse… compels you. You eat because of its constraint. I'm right, aren't I?”

  Silence from the beast. Silence, but also stillness. “I could kill you…” Ven dropped the blade. “But I spare you. Do you understand? I spare your life, and I will tell others of your kind, the Humans you once were, to leave you be. I've killed enough for one lifetime. I won't kill someone else who became a monster by accident.”

  The Wendigo whined, and started to drag itself up. Okay, Ven thought. Letting it ride on fate now. If I wake up in the evening, it understood. It'll spare me as well. He closed his eyes as the sun began its long, arduous ascent.

  When he opened them again as dusk settled over the world, and he patted himself down to make sure every part was connected to every other part, he was glad to know that--third night running--he was not wrong.

  Part 7: The Temptation of Tanith Ven

  Chapter 35

  It took Ven most of the night to retrace his steps back to the loft. His hands had healed, but they were still stiff and aching in the cool night air. His ribs had managed to knit back together, more or less, but breathing wasn't the easiest thing in the world. And, of course, he was pretty much naked. That certainly didn't help matters.

  When he did return, he found himself a little disappointed that X'on and Veritea weren't there to greet him. That had been the plan, of course; they had promised him three nights of uninterrupted observation before they returned to check his progress – which meant he wouldn't see his friends for another night at least. Oh, well. Another night worth of healing makes it look like my arse didn't get handed to me quite so bad.

  Shivering, clutching his sword and the oilskin pouch he'd recovered in his chattering beak, Ven climbed on unsteady feet up to the loft. He noted with fatigued appreciation that everything had been left as he'd dropped it the night before. No meddling farm hand or curious animal had disturbed anything during the day, as far as he could tell. He pulled the soothing homespun blanket around him, stuffed the remains of his rations down his gullet in greedy handfuls, and spent the rest of the evening with a lazy eye on the livestock he'd saved as they slept at peace in the pasture below. When the sun rose again, he'd already been curled up in his tent for twenty minutes, dozing.

  He awoke that night to find X'on's big warm face hovering over him. Veritea's beatific features joined it a moment later.

  “Any luck?” X'on asked, holding up a fresh supply of rations.

  “And then some,” Ven said.

  *

  “A venom with both paralytic and the potential to induce auditory hallucinations? How singular. If only I'd had a chance to examine the stuff. What wonders it might hold.”

  “Kinda had a feeling that would be what you took away from that story,” Ven said, but his mood was cheerful. “Here. Be careful, they're sharp.” He tossed the oilskin at X'on, who caught it in a beefy hand. The big man proceeded to dump it out on the floor, where a small collection of devil's' teeth rattled and clattered on the dusty boards. X'on looked up, his good eye glistening with excitement.

  “You are too kind, my friend.”

  “Yeah, yeah, don't say I never got you anything.”

  “So the Wendigo. It was, what, scavenging?” Veritea asked, brow furrowed.

  “That's my guess,” Ven confirmed. “The other creatures, the devils, they only appeared interested in their victims' blood. Not vampiric, precisely, but definitely hematophogists. I'm sure they consumed some part of the meat, but nowhere near the quantity they were taking. Somehow, the Wendigo must have been satiating its own hunger by eating whatever they'd left behind.”

  “And you really think that if our men stop attacking it, it will go away?”

  Ven opened his mouth to reply, then paused. “I… yeah, I do.” He took a large bite from the hunk of cheese he was holding. “We didn't… there wasn't anything like verbal communication. But I think I made it understand that you would leave it be if he did the same for you.”

  Veritea's look was incredulous. “And if it doesn't? He doesn't?”

  Ven put on his most cocky, reassuring grin. “Then I come back and finish the job.”

  She smiled back at him, that enigmatic twist of the lips he was getting to know so well. “Oh really? So you are coming back then?”

  “As soon as our job's done. I can't imagine X'on had any other plans in mind for how to get home. Or did you?” He looked over at his companion.

  After a moment, X'on looked up from the tooth he was holding between a delicate thumb and forefinger, which he'd been turning through his fingers before his eyes. “I'm sorry? Did I what?”

  “Don't worry about it,” Ven laughed. “We'll discuss it once this whole thing's behind us.”

  “Of that I have no doubt,” he said, his full attention focused once again on the curiosity before him.

  *

  After Ven had finished his meal, the pair decided to spend one more night in the Human's city before moving on. X'on wanted to pick up some winter wear, as well as equipment for excavation, and Ven was happy for another night of recovery. Other than his hands, he was pretty much back to his old self, but another day's sleep would do nothing but good for him.

  They drove back in relative silence; silence that became much less relative when X'on and Veritea both shot down Ven's repeated requests for another go behind the wheel. There was still plenty of night left when they arrived, so Veritea took them to a couple of all night merchant's shops to look for the supplies they needed. Their first stop presented the biggest hurdle; when it came to heavy garments, size was an issue. Ven could fit into the largest regalia, though it caused some trouble where the stumps of his wings were concerned. X'on, being several heads taller than the greatest Human in the city, didn't even have that luxury.

  “If needs must, I will go without,” he said, when Ven asked what he wanted to do next.

  “Are you kidding? According to you, we're heading into, like, snow! And ice! Like, everywhere!” He waved his talons in great grasping arcs, trying to convey the immensity of the frozen landscape he presumed they intended to breach.

  “Yes,” X'on said. It was such a simple, direct reply it made Ven stop w
aving his arms mid motion. “And I have waited untold years for this, Ven. I am...we are so close to the end. We have already endured so much. But I will suffer whatever torment the elements required to complete my goal. We've tarried here long enough. I have appreciated your passion, Ven, but I feel I must insist. The journey will resume tomorrow, at First Moon. I will wear what I have always worn. You will wear the wardrobe necessary to keep you alive. We will see this through.”

  What do you say in the face of that kind of resolve? That kind of madness? What else was there, but to agree and believe that the best would come of it?

  “We soldier on,” Ven said.

  Once Ven had been outfitted, they picked up the shovels, pickaxes, torches, and the like, tools X'on felt might be needed to unearth the hoard. They also found a new bedroll for X'on and provisions for the pair of them. Thankfully, it appeared X'on still intended to eat, if not dress appropriately, and a number of merchants were quite happy to gift the necessities to their strange new heroes. Afterward, they headed back to Fleisze's home, where Ven again recounted his story to the Healer. Though she was awakened from a sound sleep in order to hear it, and they were all pretty sure she missed the finer details, it was enough information for her to pass on to whatever the Humans had in place for a ruling council. Ven, satisfied with the night’s work, barely made it to his room before sunrise immobilized him for the day.

  When the sun set that evening, Veritea drove them one last time to the outskirts of Kqalipu’mnui, and even helped load Ven's pack to his shoulders. She kissed his cheek and whispered as she passed his ear canal, “Be careful.” Ven's eyeridges knitted together at that one, but she merely smiled as she always did.

  “Are you ready?” X'on called. It was quite apparent he wanted to get moving. He had already trudged several meters north, and called back over his shoulder while walking. Ven gave Veritea's shoulder a final squeeze, said, “Tell your mom I said thanks,” and ran to catch up.

  Chapter 36

  While they were indeed approaching an endless landscape of snow and ice, Ven and his companion had not quite made it that far yet. That was the good news. The bad news was that meant Ven was loaded down with all the equipment X'on had deemed necessary for a journey into tundra while the actual climate around them could be described, at best, as “a little chilly”. He was sweating profusely only a couple of hours after they left Kqalipu’mnui, and called for a short rest to catch his breath.

  Then he called again, because it appeared X'on, who continued to walk several paces ahead of him since they left the city, hadn't heard him. Then a third time, more sharply, when it became clear he was being ignored.

  At last, X'on turned to look back at him. Ven started. He'd never seen that look on his friend's face before; it was an expression so foreign that it took Ven a couple of seconds to place it.

  X'on was… angry.

  The half-giant crossed his arms and waited, his every manner impatient, his entire being a coiled spring waiting to be untethered. Ven closed the gap between them, but hesitantly. This was new territory for him, and considering how much time he'd spent with X'on--almost half a year of close quarters living, by his own calculation--he was distressed by the idea that there was still an aspect of his friend with which he was unfamiliar.

  “Hey, listen, we don't have to stop,” Ven began.

  The half-giant took a deep breath, and sighed. With visible effort, X'on uncrossed his arms, and let them fall to his sides. Then he reached for the larger of the two canteens that were strapped to Ven's pack. Speaking of, why am I the one carrying everything but the Book again? It was an idle thought, and one he didn't give voice to. It wouldn't do any good, and it probably would have just made the situation worse.

  X'on finished the draft from his waterskin, wiped a thick hand across his mouth, and spoke. “No. No, you were right to stop. I find myself… overeager, this late in the journey. My excitement, not to mention my own innate stamina, should not be a reason to tax your own abilities.”

  His tone never changed from the gentle, affable affectation Ven knew so well, but he felt an undercurrent of… derision? Belittlement?

  Do not trust him.

  A dark murmur of contempt he'd never caught before.

  He closer to me than you will ever be.

  “Whatever. Don't slow up on my account,” Ven said, trying to parse the strange duality of words and intent from his partner. “I can keep up.”

  X'on smiled, but there was no humor in it this time. “That's never been the case before,” he said. “Why start now?”

  Ven glared. “If that was supposed to be a joke, it didn't land.”

  X'on's expression didn't change. “Are you going to spend these precious remaining minutes of your rest critiquing my comedic endeavors, or are you going to sit down and have some water?”

  Ven sat, and sipped at his water, and--not for the first time--considered just ditching the big bastard and calling it quits. He had a place to go back to, after all. Cold hell, it was the same place he would be returning once this whole mess was finished anyway.

  But no. Whether he liked it or not, he owed X'on. And he was not wrong, they were close. If he punked out now, if he walked this contract, he'd live with that humiliation the rest of his days. Even if it was just in his own mind.

  Besides, he wanted to use his share of the loot--well, some of my share anyway. Let's not get crazy--to get something nice for Veritea and her mom. They'd been so kind to him, and he wanted to repay that kindness. Maybe even repay the others who had donated their time and goods while he was among them.

  “Are you ready to begin again?” X'on asked. The old compassion was back in his voice. Ven almost wondered if he had imagined the earlier harshness, but realized that was foolish. X'on had been angry. But maybe he'd just been distracted and, yes, excited. They were in the home stretch. Ven could empathize with a desire to finish a job and reap its benefits.

  He wiped his face down with the corner of the blanket Fleize had given him, took a final swallow from his skin, and said, “Yeah. I'm sorry. Let's go.”

  But X'on was already walking.

  *

  Things continued like that, more or less, for the next month. As the land beneath their feet began to crunch with snow, as the air began to thin and chill and burn upon intake, as the horizon blurred to a homogenous, endless white, X'on moved north, ever north, like a creature possessed. Ven just did his best to keep up and stay out of his companion's way.

  Every night, Ven would wake to find the half-giant in his meditation position, which he held for only a moment after Ven's eyes cracked open. Ven would stuff his face as X'on broke down the camp, and the pair would be off again. Often, Ven had to break into a light jog just to keep up. He wondered if X'on slept at all now. He certainly wasn't eating, despite packing enough food for the both of them. Sometimes Ven wondered if the half-giant wasn't carrying him during the day.

  He wasn't talking much anymore, either. When they had first begun this quest, those long months ago, X'on had delighted in elocution on any subject, every subject, that came into his field of vision. Now, surrounded by the snow and ice and wind of the frozen northern lands, still clad in his barest rough spun, he said not an unprovoked word. When Ven asked him a question, his responses were either terse and uninterested, or given in the same insulting tone that had greeted Ven before. For the first week, Ven had even attempted to provoke the kind of diatribes he'd so often longed to put an end to, but they inevitably went sour:

  “So, uh, what kind of tree is that?”

  “It is green.”

  “Well, yeah, but I mean, what's the, uh, jean-us?”

  “Whatever genus a tree needs to be to grow in an intemperate climate, I suppose.”

  “Ah.” Pause. “What about that mountain?”

  “That is a hillock at best.”

  “Well, did anything cool or memorable happen there?”

  “I do not know. You should ask your Human friends som
etime, considering they have lived the history of this land, while I am a stranger to it.”

  In fact, the only time X'on ever laughed was when Ven asked if he was jealous of how well Ven had gotten along with the Humans. “What?” he chuckled. “Why would I possibly be envious that you learned to communicate with a collection of dragon-slaughtering hairless apes?” He was actually jovial for the first time in weeks. “I held my tongue as best I could while in their presence, because it was beneficial to the quest. But I never liked them.” And then he was off again. Ven could have sworn he'd heard the half-giant mutter “Fool,” under his breath, but it may have just been the wind.

  Ven pretty much gave up after that one. He decided it was just easier to mourn the friend he had evidently lost to the insanity of single-minded ambition, and to aid him until their partnership was dissolved.

  *

  The only other thing that could catch X'on's attention, the only object that still deserved his affection, his love, was that thrice-damned book. That, he kept in hand at all times, now. That, he held close by, protecting it from the elements that savaged him. That book was becoming his focus; more than ever, it was his talisman for a future they were not so much approaching as assailing. Ven was learning to hate the blasted thing, learning to hate the power it seemed to hold over X'on. When the two had begun the final leg of their journey, Ven had secretly hoped that he would find something similar within the hoard, something that would help ensure his ability to communicate with his Human friends. Now he was looking forward to being rid of the damn thing.

  The further north the pair traveled, the shorter the days were getting--and the longer the frozen, unforgiving nights. Ven was unaccustomed to getting less sleep and being awake for hours longer, and starting to fray at the edges himself. Even being forced to go days without sleep was better than going dense for a bare few hours. After three weeks of what amounted to microsleep, he began waking up tired and groggy. He tried once more to talk to X'on, to petition for more rest breaks. But his begging once again fell on deaf ears, so he stopped. It was getting colder, too, a persistent, invasive cold that settled in his bones and refused to dissipate with a shortened day's rest. He found himself waking up wrapped in his blanket, shivering; his beak clattering together, his improvised Human clothes proving little good against the snowy chill. He wanted to say something to X'on about this as well. To find comfort in complaining, if nothing else. But when he looked at the big man, walking tall against the freezing winds, frost outlining his cheekbones, his jaw, the muscles of his shoulders, and knew he had no call for grievance. X'on had yet to respond to the cold, so Ven assumed he was expected to do the same.