by Sam Sykes
She is eager to trade one life for so many. Let us comply. Let us treat her to smoke and flame, seize this temple, and use it to help the many.
“I can’t…,” she whispered.
Then don’t. Let me do it for you. You may be the savior and I shall be your humble aide. I will make it quick. Do not worry. She will feel nothing.
She felt her arm tremble, begin to rise.
All you need to do is close your eyes…
She felt her eyelids grow heavy and fall shut.
All you need to do is close your ears…
Aturach was saying something. Teneir was saying something. She could hear neither.
And let… me… OUT.
Crimson flashed behind her eyes. For but the briefest of moments, she saw it. Him. Towering, terrible, black as pitch upon a field of flame and blood, his mouth craned open in shrieking laughter and with blood staining his teeth. His terrible feast, endlessly feasting on corpses, forever choking on ash, perpetually glutted, and always, always starving.
Her eyes snapped open. She seized her left arm. Something inside her screamed. The world looked alien around her, fragile and delicate and fit to be consumed. She tried to speak, but her words were breathless, her mouth was dry.
Asper turned. Away from their curious stares, away from their inquiring voices. She ran from the Temple of Ancaa without a scream.
Without a word.
FOURTEEN
THE GULLET
This can’t be right.”
It felt good for Lenk to say it aloud, after he had been thinking it for the past half an hour.
But it was a small comfort. And that comfort only grew smaller as it was pressed between the tremendous cliff walls that rose out of the river on either side.
The dry desert air that had scraped at his throat for so long was gone in an instant, drowned beneath a humidity that became oppressive in the span of a few breaths. Walls that had been sheer blasted rock suddenly blossomed into vivid green life.
Trees rose out of the crowns of the cliffs, their leafy canopies drooping into the chasm as if bowing in greeting to the newcomers. Vines crawled across the rock, into every crack and out of every crevice. And everywhere flowers bloomed, a riot of colors that sent spirals of shed petals twisting with every stray breeze that blew down the chasm.
The Old Man took another shuddering step into the chasm. Waves kicked up by its massive stride rolled up against the bases of the rock walls. A low-hanging tree branch shook as its green hide brushed against it. The sky erupted with color as a flock of birds, each one bright and dazzling as a gem, took wing and flew overhead, complaining noisily to the impassive creature that disturbed their roost.
Lenk watched them as they wheeled overhead, swooped past the Old Man’s head, and went flying off down the chasm until they disappeared.
Into the Gullet.
He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Forbidding gates with ominous warnings carved in them, perhaps. Or maybe an arch from which hung the skulls of those foolish enough to enter before him. He had expected more death, as clichéd as it was.
Not that there wasn’t plenty of that here, he thought as he glanced over the railing of the deck.
Upon the small beaches formed in coves at the bases of the cliffs, they gathered. Through the blue waters of the Lyre, they waded. Two-ton hunks of smooth gray blubber upon squat little hooved legs.
River bulls.
Their snouts, broad and flat and brimming with curving tusks, each bore a long, sharp horn that thrust into the air like a scimitar. The rotting wooden hulls of vessels that had borne treasure-seekers this far littered the river, each one bearing neat puncture marks, the work of the bulls’ horns and testament to their legendary territorialism.
Yet big as they were, their bulk was tiny against the colossal stride of the Old Man’s legs, and their bellows were squeaks lost in the titan’s great groans. When it was clear that their posturing would do nothing, they quickly swam out of the Old Man’s path.
I suppose that explains why we couldn’t come here by boat, Lenk thought.
Yet even the thought of being spun around like a child’s doll upon a river bull’s horn wasn’t enough to diminish his awe of the ever-thickening jungle around him.
“This was desert just a few miles—no, just a few feet back,” he muttered. He felt a prick at his arm, looked down to see an insect crawling across his skin. “I can still feel the sand in my shirt. But now…” He held up his arm, stared at the insect—some winged orange-and-green thing. “I’ve never seen flowers or bugs like these before.”
He flinched as a scaly hand clamped down on his arm suddenly. It drew back, a greasy red smear where the bug had been.
“If ya had,” a voice grunted, “ya’d know that the ones in the Gullet ain’t the sort ya let sit on yer skin.”
Chemoi glared at him. Her fellow saccarii busied themselves in the background. Some scuttled across the deck and rappelled down the Old Man’s flanks to dislodge parasites. Others lingered at its head, whispering soothing words that apparently helped it continue.
Lenk supposed he should be flattered that she had taken time out from that to tend to him.
“West Lyre’s gentle, pinky. She coddles merchants ’n’ other soft-skinned shits with sunshine ’n’ beaches.” Chemoi wiped her hand on her baggy trousers, heedless of the nasty stain it left. “This far east she’s a lone mother with three kids, two jobs, and a big fat boil on her ass. Nasty, nasty bitch.” Her hand slid into a pocket of her trousers, produced a small clay pot, and thrust it into Lenk’s hands. “Watch that ya don’t give her reason to turn on ya.”
Lenk removed the pot’s lid and sniffed at the mixture, instantly recoiling. Bugreek, it was called: a mixture of animal fat and oils that was said to be offensive enough to keep insects from landing on any flesh anointed with it. Chemoi’s own flesh, left generously bared by the cloth wrapped about her chest, glistened with a liberal application of the stuff.
Curiously, the saccarii tending to the Old Man seemed far less concerned with clothing than their city-dwelling kin. They walked about in various states of undress, exposing skin flecked with patches of scaly, toughened flesh. This condition—and the reactions they drew from Cier’Djaal’s citizens—was why most saccarii went around clad head to toe. Out here, Lenk supposed, there was no one to be shocked.
Yet here, as in the city, the saccarii still wore wraps about their heads that left only the ochre of their eyes revealed. And Chemoi fixed hers on Lenk in an impatient glower.
“Thanks,” he said, scooping out the mixture and applying the reeking stuff to his arms and neck.
Chemoi nodded her approval before turning to join her companions in attending to their living vessel. They busily hurried about the deck, darting around the other passengers, whom they outright ignored.
Fitting, Lenk thought, since the passengers seemed to be doing their best to ignore each other.
At the stern of the deck, Shuro sat atop a few crates of cargo, poring over a trade manifest. Sensing his eyes upon her, she glanced up just long enough to shoot him a warning look. They had taken care not to be seen together too much since the incident at Jalaang. That might have led to some uncomfortable questions.
Though no one seemed interested in asking them.
Man-Khoo Yun stood, four arms folded in four sleeves, staring out over the edge of the railing from behind the portrait over his face. He had said not a word since they had entered the Gullet, and he had deigned to move only to cast looks to the bow of the deck.
Kataria lingered there, perched expertly upon the deck’s railing, one hand gripping a support beam holding the deck’s wooden canopy up. Her bow and quiver hung loosely around her shoulder, arrows rattling with each stride of the Old Man. She leaned out, staring over the Old Man’s head and into the reaches of the winding Gullet ahead, with such ease that he might have called it reckless if he had not known her better.
But he knew her well.
>
Talk to her.
So well that he knew that sounded like a bad idea.
And yet he had to. Too many fitful nights, sleep filled with the faces of dead men. Too many silent days, not so much as a breath shared with her.
And so he took a step toward her. He had to talk to someone. Anyone.
“Your priorities fascinate me.”
Well, almost anyone.
He would have liked to ignore Mocca. He would have liked to even pretend that he could. But even that small comfort was impossible when the man in white suddenly appeared at the periphery of his vision.
“You are surrounded by a miracle of life blooming in one massive, sandy graveyard.” Mocca stood at the edge of the deck, hands folded behind his back, staring out over the greenery of the Gullet. “You are assaulted by a verdant sprawl of life while, not two miles away in the desert, a young woman spends her dying breath pleading for water she will never find.”
He cast the barest of smirks over his shoulder.
“You bear witness to the impossible, and your sole thoughts are for a woman who is not thinking of you. There’s a poem here, had I but pen for it.”
There were moments when Lenk almost forgot that no one else could see Mocca. Just as there were moments when he almost forgot he shouldn’t be seen talking to the wind. He sauntered up to the railing, dropped his voice low.
“This is not a good time for you to be here.”
“No? When would you like me to come back? Shall I wait for you to approach her and her to rebuff you? Should I come later tonight, when you’re sleeping two feet away from her and wondering how it feels as though it’s two hundred miles?” His smile grew softer, a sadness curling the corners of his mouth. “Or shall I come again tomorrow, when you’re alone but for the wind carrying away the last traces of her scent?”
“Did you have a point?” Lenk asked, pointedly not looking at the man. “Or did you come here because you couldn’t keep these dramatic gems to yourself?”
Mocca pursed his lips. “Admittedly, I was rather proud of them. But regardless of whether you believe it or not, I actually don’t have a vested interest in seeing you make a fool of yourself.”
Lenk looked over his shoulder to Kataria. A breeze caught her, sending her hair whipping about her face. Her face cracked with a grin, broad canines bared as she laughed at the sensation. And he instantly looked down to his hands, trembling upon the railing.
“They weren’t clean kills,” he said. “They weren’t warriors. They were merchants.”
“They weren’t your fault,” Mocca replied. “They were trying to kill you.”
“I know that, but…”
He inhaled. He released his breath slowly, placing one hand on the other to keep it from shaking. The breeze wended its way past his nostrils, carrying the scent of her sweat.
“I need her.” Even saying it made him ache. “I need her to feel normal. I need her to make me believe this, the dead men, all of this, is all worth it. But every time I close my eyes, I can see their faces, I can see my sword bloody in my hand, but I can’t see her.”
The silence hung unmercifully short, Mocca’s voice cut unmercifully deep.
“Perhaps there’s a reason for that.”
Something about it—the words, the way he said them, they way they sounded so right—made Lenk want to strangle him. And if he had been less focused on not looking crazy, he might have tried.
“You live your life in waking nightmare,” Mocca said, looking out over the river. “Your dreams are empty but for songs made of a dying man’s last breath. Tell me, when you envision your new life, what else is there beyond her?”
Lenk’s mouth hung open as he tried to formulate an answer, but none would come. Any ideas of what he might do, the shitty shops and farms he might run in Cier’Djaal, were hazy in his head. Whenever he envisioned his new life, only one thing about it was solid.
And she was not speaking to him.
“If so much could be placed upon just one person, no one would have need of gods,” Mocca said. “Perhaps she feels the stress of this burden and your insistence on putting it upon her.” He rolled his shoulders. “Or perhaps she’s simply drifting elsewhere. I lived a thousand lifetimes, you know. I can say without uncertainty that no love is eternal.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” Lenk’s voice rose enough to draw some curious stares from the saccarii crew. “Be a weapon? A tool for Sheffu? For you? Just pick up my sword, close my eyes, and think happy thoughts as I start hacking?”
“Sheffu is a man of fears. He asks you to close your eyes that you might not see the terrible things surrounding you. I am a being of reality. All I ask is that you open your eyes and take it in.” He gestured grandly to the greenery blooming out before them, the forest that should not be. “And all its horrible beauty.”
Lenk glared at the man. “So, about that point you supposedly had…”
“Is there no pride taken in interpretation anymore?” Mocca’s sigh was exaggerated and dramatic. “It’s a wise man who stops and considers his surroundings. Fail to do that and you will one day open your eyes, look around, and wonder how it is you came so far and have nothing to show for it but the sand beneath your feet.” He glanced over Lenk’s head. “Much as you’ll wonder how it is that everyone on board here has stopped moving and you haven’t even noticed.”
“What?”
Lenk looked over his shoulder and got his answer. Everyone on deck had gathered at the railing, standing there in stunned silence, all of their eyes drawn up to the cliffs of the Gullet’s northern side.
When he turned back, Mocca had disappeared. He cursed under his breath, then turned and walked to the edge of the railing, stopping beside Kataria. Her bow was in one hand, the other resting upon an arrow in her quiver.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
She did not answer. She did not have to.
As soon as he looked up, he saw them. Dark shapes huddled at the edge of the cliff, stark against the greenery and black as though they drank the sunlight. The only flash of color among them was the glint of silver, as they carried steel swords and spears naked in long, simian hands.
Tulwar.
He had seen them before, back in Cier’Djaal. But those had been different: silver-furred, eyes bright yellow and faces alive with color. These, thicker and taller than their cousins, were the color of pitch. Their eyes were dark and their faces were painted bone-white.
And while the boisterous, violent nature of tulwar was legendary, these merely stood silent, watching the Old Man’s progress with marked interest.
And unsettling as they were, the beasts they rode were infinitely stranger.
Great simian creatures, taller than a horse at their shoulders, leaned forward on their knuckles. Black fur covered their bodies but for their red faces, which were left bare. In contrast to the tulwar riding upon their shoulders, the beasts seemed restless, shuffling on their feet, offering occasional hoots and baring fangs at the passersby.
“All apologies are offered if this one presumes ignorance on the part of passengers,” Man-Khoo Yun said, a strain at the edge of his monotone. “But if there exists any biped present that is not currently teeming with concern, this one suggests immediate amendment.”
“It’s all right,” Lenk said. “We knew there’d be tulwar out here. We’ve prepared for this.”
“We’re prepared for tulwar,” Shuro said. “Not Mak Lak Kai.”
“I’m guessing there’s something I should know about why that’s bad.”
“It’d take too long to tell you every reason why,” she said. “Suffice to say the tulwar—violent, barbaric, and murderous as they are—consider the Mak Lak Kai clan to be a bit unhinged.” She looked to Man-Khoo Yun. “They usually stick to the forests. What are they doing out here?”
“And why are they not attacking?” Lenk added.
“Theories within probability would likely suggest a cursory cost
-benefit analysis on their part to be unfavorable. This one humbly professes minimal knowledge as to the behavioral patterns of the unwashed.” He angled his portrait to regard Kataria. “Perhaps savagery in residence can shed light upon the subject.”
Lenk wasn’t quite sure what he expected Kataria’s retort to be—something involving violent ejection of bodily fluid, probably—but the shict said nothing. She didn’t even seem to notice the couthi, let alone his insult. Her eyes were hard as they stared out over the tulwar, her ears erect and quivering.
She knows something.
Lenk looked back up to the cliffs, made a quick count. “About fifteen of them. Each one riding some kind of…”
“Gaambol,” Shuro said.
“Sure. Gaambol… ape… thing. Way too many for us to fight, no matter what you call them. If they wanted a fight, they would have done it by now.” He looked to Man-Khoo Yun. “We’ll go ahead with the plan.”
The couthi regarded him for a moment before bowing his painting in acknowledgment. One of his smaller hands rose and made a gesture at Chemoi. Orders were barked, feet scurried across the deck, weapons were drawn.
They had gone over this a dozen times since leaving Jalaang, enough that Lenk was starting to feel like an expert on tulwar behavior—as it pertained to avoiding getting savagely beaten by them, at least.
The saccarii reached for fishing harpoons, cutlasses, anything they could seize to make it clear that they would not be cowed. Yet anything that lived in the desert was still hard up for supplies even in the best of times. And so three saccarii walked to the railing with crates clutched in their arms and tossed them overboard.
Each one tumbled off the flank of the Old Man and splashed into the river below. Cork panels had been secured to them to keep them from sinking, and each one was filled with food, wine, and a little bit of coin. Not enough to really count as a “tribute,” but enough to make tulwar consider taking the easier bargain.
The tulwar watched the crates as they struck the water, but made no move to go down and retrieve them. Their attentions almost immediately turned back to the Old Man as the behemoth slowly made its sauntering way past them. One of their gaambols let out a shriek, slapping the ground, as though insulted by the offering.
