Death's Heretic

by James L. Sutter

  Inside, the tower was a hollow shaft. Niches that must once have supported the crossbeams of the upper stories climbed the curved walls at regular intervals, but any beams they might have held appeared to have also rotted away without a trace. High above, the tower’s top was a circle of blue turning slowly to pink, with no shreds of roof to block it. Yet due to the tower’s height, the light that managed to bounce and reflect its way down to ground level was weakened significantly, giving Salim the disconcerting impression of being at the bottom of a well. Indeed, the floor where they stood was damp, the moss thick and spongy beneath their feet, bulging in places over what he hoped were fallen stones or the remains of the tower’s former furnishings. But all his misgivings about the light and the detritus that might lie underfoot were pushed aside by the greater issue of the tower’s resident.

  The protean floated placidly in the center of the space, halfway up the tower. It was as big as Calabast but more sinuous, its lower half the body of an iridescent snake, coiling over and around itself. Above that, the bare, pale chest and shoulders of a man extended into wiry arms with hands like talons, yet the true wonder was its head: a strange, long-muzzled face which at once combined the bright feathers of a tropical bird with a fanged, reptilian maw. The creature bobbed slightly as it hung in the air, as if suspended in some sea whose eddies were felt by it alone.

  Those great bird eyes snapped open as the companions entered, their blazing amber fixing all three of the newcomers in a searchlight glare.

  Salim exploded. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. Beneath the thin sheath of his skin, his body began to swell painfully, inflating like a pig bladder blown full of air. Bones creaked and stretched, and the long muscles of his legs and arms cramped and knotted. Tanned flesh burned and bulged as it struggled to accommodate the unprecedented growth spurt, and he suddenly had a terrifyingly clear vision of himself swelling too far and bursting like an overcooked sausage, spewing hot Salim-juices all over Calabast and Neila.

  Neila. Salim struggled to turn his head but found it already fused in place by the overgrown muscles in his neck and shoulders. He heaved at his elephantine legs, accomplishing a whole thirty degrees of movement, but it was enough for his bulging eyes—quickly distorting into uselessness from the pressure of his expanding skull—to see the girl.

  The young noblewoman was still the same size—no change to those slim hips, the solid shoulders—but her hands were clasped to her throat and her mouth was wide, a muffled squeal all that came of her attempt to scream around the foot-long, sickly gray-green tentacle that now protruded from her mouth like a grotesque tongue.

  Above them, the floating protean began to uncoil. It hissed—a long, trilling call that was as much bird as serpent—and Salim would have sworn that its expression was one of both anger and a delight at being angered.

  “Enough!” Calabast stepped forward and went to one knee, bringing his massive fists down on the mossy floor. As they struck, there was a flash that lit the tower brighter than full noon. Earth and stone flew from the point of impact in a shock wave that narrowly missed Salim and Neila. The tower shook, and a high section of the walls crumbled, fortunately raining its masonry outside rather than in, where it would likely have squashed the humans flat.

  The weird growing sensation ceased. Salim fell backward onto the freshly churned dirt and moss and gasped for breath. He managed to roll his head to the left and was unsurprised to see Neila doing the same, choking and gagging. He started to crawl toward her, but she caught the motion and waved him away. She sat up awkwardly.

  “We are not here to start a war, chaos worm, but we will not be toyed with.” Calabast’s voice was the fury of a storm. “If you would speak, we would hear. But if you harm them again, I will destroy you. You know this.”

  The bird-snake’s coils slithered over and around themselves in a complex, never-ending knot. When it spoke, the protean’s words were out loud and perfectly clear, yet there followed in their wake a sudden rush of whispers, half-heard and indecipherable, that seemed to come not from the thing’s mouth, but from the dark places in Salim’s own head, filling it with a low rustle.

  “Warsongs are not yours to call, clock-man. War is in the meeting/in the eating. But we will talk—yes, we will speak.”

  Next to Salim, Neila got unsteadily to her feet. He followed suit, a deep, aching exhaustion in his muscles the only sign that they’d been so recently abused.

  “You bastard,” she spat at the creature. “You filthy snake.”

  The floating protean looked amused. “Art is wasted on the narrow-minded,” it said, but its tone was agreeable, almost courtly.

  Salim took a deep breath, doing his best to get a grip on the situation, and then stepped forward.

  “Chaos lord,” he said, striving to match the creature’s own casual tone. “We know that you were responsible for the theft of a soul from the Boneyard. We have come seeking it.”

  The imentesh hissed again in that weird tone that sounded both pleased and dangerous. Scales the multicolored sheen of oil on water coursed over each other, their sound the rasp of leather against a barber’s razor.

  “We know who you are, stormsmiter/longwalker/daughter of none.”

  Salim paused, momentarily taken aback by the creature’s description, then continued.

  “Stealing a specific soul from one of the Outer Courts—let alone the court of the axiomites—is most impressive.” Salim didn’t have to fake an admiring tone—such a theft should have been damn near impossible. “Yet the sun orchid elixir would mean nothing to you.”

  “True!” the protean crowed, its voice now creating a weird, melodic counterpoint to the waves of droning whispers in Salim’s head. “The little lives of mortal men are nothing to the Maelstrom’s ken. We will sing the Deep Songs long after your world is dust/fire/ash, oh yes!”

  Beneath Salim’s feet, there was a low grinding sound and the squealing crack of shearing stone. Immediately, the inside of the tower was bathed in a pink glow that came from behind the travelers and cast their three-part shadows long across the far wall. Salim glanced back and saw that the mossy ground upon which they stood now ended at the tower’s doorway. Beyond it, where moments ago they’d clambered up a rocky rise overlooking sea and fields, was only pink light.

  “Stop that,” Salim said, his voice steadier than he felt.

  Birdlike shoulders shrugged, ruffling the long, thin feathers.

  “What is ours to stop? It is the Song of the Depths/the Will of the Speakers. It will mold as it wills from the sky/sea, and from you/us.”

  Before Salim could respond, Neila shoved past him, close enough to the protean that she had to crane her head almost straight up to address it. Salim noted white knuckles on her sword hilt, but she hadn’t drawn. That was good.

  “Who?” she shouted. “Who are you working for? Qali? Jbade? If you don’t need the elixir, who does?”

  The protean smiled, the lipless skin of its reptilian mouth pulling back further to reveal rows of white, triangular teeth.

  “You have come far, human child, but the hand with the knife is the arm of the body—oh yes. The end recalls the beginning.”

  Neila screamed. It was a cry of rage and frustration so bestial that Salim almost took a step backward before he caught himself. Even the protean’s pupils dilated in surprise, the feathers on the back of its neck rising like a dog’s hackles.

  “Speak plain!” she howled.

  In response, the snake-man looked to Salim.

  “That you are a priest is false, yet you are not a false priest—that honor lies elsewhere, and death’s trumpeter blows quietly for himself.”

  Neila looked angry enough to climb the very air and throttle the riddling protean, but Salim barely noticed. His attention was fixed on the protean’s eyes. Though the thing continued to speak in koans, those lamplike eyes bored into his, and behind the detached, unbalanced demeanor of the creature, he thought he saw something. Interest. A real des
ire for Salim to understand.

  And then, suddenly, he did.

  “Khoyar.”

  The protean’s face lit up at Salim’s whisper. Saurian teeth bared once more, and it twisted itself through a rapid figure eight.

  “Good, longwalker! You see through the veils and hear the song!”

  Neila turned toward Salim. “What’s it talking about?”

  Salim barely noticed her, so full was his head with newly formed theories.

  “It’s Khoyar. The high priest. He’s the one who’s extorting you.”

  Neila stared at him, mouth open.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would the high priest of Pharasma blackmail me for the sun orchid elixir?”

  “Because he shouldn’t want it.” Though Salim was reluctant to take anything the protean said at face value—the servants of entropy loved nothing more than sowing discord, and the imenteshes were the most proficient of the lot—everything was clicking into place now. “Officially, Khoyar should have nothing but scorn for those trying to extend their lives and cheat the Lady of Graves. For him to admit that he wants to as well would be the greatest heresy imaginable. Hence bidding for it himself is out of the question. He needs some way to get the elixir without anyone knowing he’s involved.”

  Neila’s eyes flashed. “Such as his offer to deliver the elixir to the kidnappers personally, in a place no one else can follow.”

  Salim nodded. “And the way the most recent note conveniently vanished in his possession.”

  Neila ruminated on this a moment, brow furrowed. “The thing I don’t understand,” she said, “is why he would call you in to investigate.”

  “He didn’t. I was sent by another.” Salim was already thinking back to Ceyanan’s smirk as he unveiled the assignment, and to his own first conversation with Khoyar. What were the high priest’s words? I don’t know that it requires such an honor.

  Behind Neila, the walls of the tower had begun to melt, gray stone flowing and running as if it were a painting splashed with thinning spirits. Time was growing short. Salim turned back to the protean.

  “So Khoyar contacted you to steal the soul.” A brief flash of Faldus Anvanory’s body, rent and torn by the claws of some huge animal, filled his mind. Salim suspected they’d found the owner of those talons, but opted to leave that detail out for the time being. Neila was handling herself remarkably well, but there was no telling what she might do if she realized that her father’s killer stood before her. Or rather, floated.

  “It sees!” the protean giggled. “The river calls, and the soul must sail—none may deny its passage. But the other end—oh yes, oh yes! At the river’s mouth, the claimers come, and from the pocket of the hoarder, a single coin can vanish!”

  Blobs of the melting walls were floating free now. Several of them began to swirl around the protean in randomized orbits, changing color and size as if in time with the pulsing of some great, unheard heartbeat.

  So Khoyar and the protean hadn’t had the ability to stop the soul from joining the well-guarded river, but instead had to wait until it reached the Outer Courts and was divided up with all the souls, ready for delivery to their new masters. Including this protean, who had appeared smack in the heart of enemy territory to harvest Faldus’s spirit. The plan was completely insane—but then, the proteans had always been good at making that work for them.

  “What did he pay you?” Neila demanded. “My father can double it.”

  The laughter that broke from the protean now was no manic giggle, but a gale-force shout of amusement.

  “Little monkey offers the hunter a stone!” The serpent-man swirled and corkscrewed down through the air until those burning, oversized bird’s eyes were only a few feet from Neila’s own, letting the magnificent length of its thick tail play out behind it. “The Void cannot be bought, soul-daughter. It sings its song/scream, and those who hear will dance.”

  Before Neila could do something rash, Salim grabbed her arm and pulled her backward. As he did so, he found that the motion was enough to pull them both free of the floor, sending them drifting slowly up and backward through the air. Neila’s legs and hands jerked awkwardly as she attempted to correct the slow, tumbling spin that would soon turn her upside down, but Salim held on. Their new trajectory carried him up to the same height as the protean, and he met its eyes with all the composure he could muster.

  “So you answered Khoyar’s summons for the same reason you do everything—for the hell of it. And maybe because the idea of stirring up trouble in a church of Pharasma appealed to you.”

  The reptilian smile grew broader, parting the jaws to reveal a mouth without a tongue, the maw held together at the back by threads of skin and muscle which probably allowed it to unhinge for special occasions. Such as if it decided to swallow an impertinent human.

  “The butterfly brings the storm, whether its wings flutter or burn.”

  “Sure, fine.” Salim was getting tired of the thing’s ceaseless riddles. And, truth be told, he was starting to get nervous. They’d made it this far, but past performance meant nothing in the Maelstrom. The longer they were here, the greater the possibility that either the protean would forget its truce and transform them into something uncomfortable, or the plane itself would unravel their essences and save its guardian the effort. “The point is: You’ve already turned the church upside down by stealing the soul, and thrown a bunch of lives into chaos. But that chaos is finite—it’s already run its course. That is, unless you were to give the soul back. Then we’d be able to go back and confront the priest, and there’d be even more chaos.”

  It was flimsy logic, but the best Salim could do under the conditions. Already he could feel a weird slithering sensation as his skin began to ripple and twist of its own accord. He held his breath.

  The protean purred, low like a big cat, and this too conveyed amusement. Was there anything the protean didn’t find amusing, in its bizarre way?

  “You sing the songs, longwalker. But the soul is elsewhere.”

  “Where is it?” That was Neila. Sideways and perpendicular, she now clung to Salim’s robe for support. She’d lost her cloak somehow, its fabric already floating away out of reach, but above a sickly pale complexion her eyes were still fierce.

  Around them, the tower split and peeled away in four chunks like segments of an orange, leaving them floating in a pink void.

  “Salim, we must go.” Calabast was perhaps ten feet away, his huge, armored bulk hanging incongruously in the glowing air.

  “Where?” Neila’s shout was hoarse.

  In response, the protean slithered closer and began to swim slow loops around all three of them in the pulsing, maddening sky. In the distance, a screaming began, akin to the earlier tearing of stone but on an infinitely magnified scale. Far to Salim’s left, a patch of sky turned a blue so dark it was almost black, and began to grow.

  “A life, a ring, a simple thing.” The protean’s tone was the patient note of a parent with a particularly stupid child. “Can the hand that grasps let go/unclench/release? No and never.” It looked toward the dark patch of sky, which was expanding at an astonishing rate, advancing with a hurricane howl. The protean ceased its circling and reared up, closing its eyes and tilting its head back, as if leaning into a wind from the screeching darkness.

  “Salim!” This time Calabast’s voice was a command, but Salim was already moving. With one hand on Neila and the other on the amulet around his throat, he kicked off of a loose coil of reptilian tail and launched himself at the clockwork man.

  Behind them, the protean sighed softly as it stretched out its arms, welcoming the hurtling storm.

  “You will hunt priests again, longwalker,” it said. “Khoyar has your soul.”

  Then great arms of stone and steel encircled the two humans, and everything changed.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Well of Wonders

  They arrived in the streets of Axis in a heap, the sudden return of gravity sla
mming them to the pavement. Calabast was fortunately on the bottom, his armor ringing loudly against the stone; otherwise the humans would have been crushed by his massive bulk. As soon as they landed, Neila was up on all fours and scrambling toward a nearby alley, turning the motion into a stumbling run as she struggled to make it out of sight before vomiting. She was only partially successful.

  Salim got to his feet slowly. He almost reached out a hand to help Calabast up, then realized the absurdity of the action. Instead he took a respectful step backward and allowed the clockwork man to rise of his own accord. “Another close one, eh?”

  The metal man made no attempt to buff out the scratches or brush off the pavement dust that clung to his armor—such efforts had undoubtedly been considered and judged pointless. “The Cerulean Void is not kind to outsiders.”

  “You don’t say.” Salim glanced sideways to check on Neila, who was still bent double in the shadows of the alley. “But at least we got our answer.”

  Calabast stared at him with his blank construct’s eyes. “The protean was waiting for us.”

  It was true. And it had known more of Salim’s history than he cared to admit.

  “No surprise there,” Salim said. “I suspect Khoyar informed it the minute we announced our intention to visit the Boneyard. Probably he thought the creature would dispatch us easily, if we even managed to find it. But you prevented that.”

  “No.” The construct’s voice was flat. “The chaos worms are not known for their prudence. I suspect that it had decided on its course of action long before you made your argument.”

  Salim considered that for a moment. “Interesting. Do you think it was telling the truth?”

  Calabast hesitated only a second, but Salim knew that for the construct, that pause was the equivalent of mulling the question over all night. At last he said, “It is dangerous to take anything a protean says at face value. But your arguments were strong, both for the priest’s betrayal and the protean’s subsequent revelation. Do you believe that this high priest is responsible?”