by Sam Sykes
He had to tilt it vertically to let the liquid slide down her throat. But once even a few drops slipped past her lips, her amber eyes shot open. She seized the waterskin and began to drink greedily, guzzling it nearly dry in the span of a few long moments.
“A waste,” Shuro said, not bothering to conceal the volume or resentment in her voice.
“She was going to die,” Lenk said.
Shuro blinked. “I suppose there must be something about this one that separates her from all the other ones we’ve watched die.”
Lenk cast her one more glare before turning his attentions back to Chemoi. The saccarii gasped as the waterskin went flaccid, coughed as she swallowed the last few drops. She pulled out of Lenk’s arms, staggered shakily to her feet, breathing heavily.
“Easy,” Lenk said, rising up and moving to help her. “Easy.”
Breathing heavily, Chemoi swayed, staggered dizzily to a nearby tree, and leaned against it. She looked out over the jungle with a slightly concussed expression. Only after several rasping breaths did her eyes settle on Lenk.
“You,” she gasped.
“Yeah, me.” Lenk glanced to Shuro. “Both of us.”
“Thought you’d died…,” she grunted, taking a step toward Lenk.
“Careful,” he cautioned, holding a hand out to steady her. “Don’t strain yourself.”
“Ain’t a strain,” she said, shaking his hand off. “Except for figurin’ out how you’re still alive.”
“We have swords,” Shuro said. “That accounted for most of it.”
Chemoi made a move to continue walking, but staggered back against the tree. “I saw my crew chewed up by river bulls so I could escape. Wish I’d have thought to bring a fuckin’ sword.”
“We made our way into the jungle from the desert,” Lenk said. “How’d you get here?”
“Ran up the coast,” Chemoi said. “Got into the jungle, met up with all these…” She looked over the carcasses around her and shook her head. “Huh. Fuck. Guess I didn’t dream that they all died.”
“They’ve been dead for a day or two, at least.”
“Yeah, we ran out of water. None of the pools ’round here were safe to drink. I gave them all I had, told them we should go back and get more, but they wouldn’t. They were looking for something.”
At this, Shuro swept forward. “What?”
“I dunno. They called it the Promise. Rool Coss or something?”
“Rhuul Khaas.” Shuro scowled over the corpses. “These were cultists. Worshippers of Khoth-Kapira.” Her scowl sharpened itself to a deadly stare she leveled at Chemoi. “And you were with them.”
The saccarii held up her hands. “Don’t look at me like that, pink. It was either go with them or get eaten by gaambols. I thought I could travel with them long enough to find a way out of the jungle.”
“And so you went further into the jungle?” Shuro made no effort to hide her hand as it drifted near her sword’s hilt.
“It… it wasn’t like that!” Chemoi protested, backing up as far as the tree would allow. “They were crazy. They kept babbling about promises and gods and lies and shit like that. If I tried to leave, they would’ve killed me!”
“They have no weapons,” Shuro said, curt as her fingers wrapped around her sword’s grip.
“They didn’t need them! The look in their eyes… they were mad. They would have strangled me, bashed my fucking head in with a rock or something!” The panic in Chemoi’s voice crept into her eyes as she looked wildly to Lenk. “And even if they hadn’t, where would I have gone? Into the jungle to be killed by gaambols or shicts? I couldn’t go anywhere!”
Lenk’s own eyes offered nothing in return but a cold scrutiny as he studied her. The fear in her eyes seemed genuine enough—but then, it was easy to see why someone would be afraid of Shuro—and she was drawn tense against the tree. To the outside eye, she looked exactly as she said she was: terrified, weak, and helpless.
But he hadn’t lived this long in this profession by trusting appearances. Especially in instances with as many corpses involved as these.
How had the cultists come this far without being torn apart by beasts? How had they known which way to go through the forest’s passages? And as pertinent as these questions all felt, there was only one that really bit at the back of Lenk’s neck like a bug.
What had they seen in Chemoi to take her with them?
That same question seemed to have occurred to Shuro, as well. And judging by the steel hiss as she began to draw her sword, she seemed to have found an answer to it. Chemoi let out a whisper, shrill and faint and pleading.
“Wait,” Lenk said suddenly.
Chemoi’s eyes all but melted with relief. Shuro shot Lenk a challenging scowl as the young man interposed himself between the two women. He met the saccarii’s stare, lips pursed. He thrust the waterskin into her hands. At her confused stare, he pointed back down the way they had arrived.
“The road goes all the way to the forest’s edge,” he said. “It gets obscured in some places, but if you stay out of sight and follow it, you can make it back and follow the coast to a settlement somewhere. There’s clean water around here, if you can find it.”
She canted her head to the side, searching for an answer to offer him. He did not wait for it before glancing at Shuro and gesturing with his chin farther up the road.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Shuro’s eyes did not soften, but her blade slid back into its sheath, however hesitantly.
While she might have protested his desire to leave Chemoi alive, she at least agreed with leaving her behind. Lenk hadn’t done that to appease her, though; the way ahead would be hard enough without all the questions that Chemoi’s presence would bring. And considering the company they had found the saccarii with, any one of those questions’ answers could be a knife in the neck.
In truth, there was an unnerving amount of logic in killing the saccarii.
But, as he set off down the path and stepped gingerly over the corpses, he realized that the unnervingness was what prevented him from doing it. The vision Mocca had shown him—the pristine light cast over pilgrims upon flawless stonework—clung to him like an itch he couldn’t scratch. But Mocca’s words were more akin to a wound that would not heal.
What would you do differently?
He had asked himself that a hundred times since leaving the harbor. He had thought of a hundred answers. But the only one that felt as if it offered any sort of balm to that wound was the one he had just made.
He would stop killing. And he would start by sparing Chemoi. It might not have made sense, but it at least felt right to him.
And yet, as he cast a glance to his companion, who in turn kept her eyes on the road ahead, he couldn’t help but wonder why coldly practical Shuro had agreed with him.
But that was another question he had no answer for. For the moment he allowed himself to at least have one problem solved neatly.
“HEY!”
Or at least it was supposed to be.
“Get back here, you fuckers!” Chemoi shouted after them. “You can’t just leave me here!”
“We certainly are physically capable of doing so,” Shuro called back. “What you mean to say is, ‘You shouldn’t just leave me here.’ And considering we disagree there, we will not be coming back.” She sniffed. “Fucker.”
“But I won’t last a night out here!” Chemoi’s voice became more plaintive, desperate. “Come on! I… I can help you! I can carry your equipment or… or…”
“You have nothing to offer us,” Shuro said. “And if you keep screaming, you’ll dry out your throat. So save your water and—”
“I know a shortcut!”
This time it was Shuro who held up a hand to stay Lenk’s progress. The young woman turned to look back at Chemoi, who stood petulantly among the dead, trembling. She said nothing else, merely folding her arms and turning her blue stare expectantly at the saccarii.
“At least…
I think I do,” Chemoi said. “The cultists here…” She kicked the nearest one. “They were talking ’bout some kind of way into the Promise. A way that no one else knew. They said it was close. Real close.”
“So tell us where it is,” Shuro said.
“So you fucks can leave me and find it yourselves?” Chemoi shook her head. “You take me with you. When you’ve done whatever the fuck you’re doing, you take me back. Promise me that and then I’ll show you.”
Shuro shot Lenk a questioning glance. Doubtless she was wondering the same thing he was. Even the most detailed maps of the Forbidden East were vague, and Rhuul Khaas’s location could be a total mystery. If anyone knew the location of the city of Khoth-Kapira, it would be his cultists.
Or Mocca, Lenk thought. But if you asked him, you’d have to explain to Shuro why you were talking to a man only you can see… who also lives in your head… and is also a centuries-old demon, yeah, maybe just take the saccarii with you.
He nodded toward Shuro. She sighed, looked back to Chemoi.
“Fine,” she said. “I promise.”
Lenk was impressed. From her tone she almost sounded sincere.
One would have to be as close to her as he was at that moment to see the look in her eyes. Only then would one realize that to her a promise was just a couple of words. And only then would one realize that to her the saccarii was just another body.
Like all the others lying motionless around their feet.
It took a few more moments for them to get on their way. Chemoi had scavenged as much as she could off the bodies of the cultists, finding a satchel’s worth of supplies: a few pieces of dried meat, hard bread, things that had not saved them.
Suspicion and resourcefulness were qualities that Lenk couldn’t help but admire. But the saccarii’s true merit showed in the hour of travel that followed.
True to her word, she led them off the beaten path. She took them off the ruined road and up a sloping path that led to a higher plateau in the jungle. Initially Shuro expressed wariness, eyes never far from their guide and hand never far from her sword. But soon the trees began to thin out and the road returned beneath their feet. The plateau’s paving seemed much better preserved, and the statues and pillars that marched the road were not quite so dilapidated. Shuro gradually eased.
Lenk, however, did not.
The presence of cultists in the jungle could not have been mere chance; they had to have been called, as so many others had been called to Khoth-Kapira. That made sense, Lenk thought, as the God-King still craved freedom above all else.
Freedom that Shuro was intent on denying him.
Lenk cast a glance to the woman, as he had so often done. And as he had so often done, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of envious marvel at her: the surety of her stride, the unwavering resolve of her stare, the way she walked with her sword as though it were weightless, just one more part of her body. She was a woman who had been trained all her life to do this, had no questions about it, and couldn’t think of herself doing anything else.
No doubts. No fears. No wondering whether or not she was doing good by stopping Khoth-Kapira.
Lenk suspected she might not be the best person to confide his own reluctance in.
Truthfully, he was slightly ashamed to admit it himself. Khoth-Kapira was a demon. Khoth-Kapira had visited so much untold suffering upon this land. He had denied none of this, embraced it even. He wasn’t being duplicitous, making excuses or offering reasoning.
He was merely asking for forgiveness.
“Merely,” Lenk scolded himself. As though anything with demons could ever be “mere.” Don’t fool yourself. He’s out for conquest. He wants to reshape the world into one where he is king, where he controls everything, where…
A shict and a human could walk together and no one would say a fucking thing.
An unbidden thought. A scratch that never stopped bleeding. An image he could never get out of his mind. And with it came only more questions, questions that gouged deeper wounds in him.
And they all ended with that one.
Would you do it? For her?
“You all right?”
Shuro’s voice made him jump. He looked over to her with more wariness than he’d intended to show, perhaps fearing that she had somehow heard his thoughts. At times her eyes looked sharp enough to do that.
But this time she looked at him as she had back at the pool: She was soft, concerned, like a normal woman.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just… you know. We’re getting close.”
“I know,” she said. “But don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
“You think so? We don’t know what awaits us.”
“If you’re scared,” she said, shooting him a wink, “I’ll protect you.”
Lenk rolled his eyes and privately wished that had been the first—or even the fifth—time a woman had said that to him.
They continued in silence, but it lasted not much longer. As the road continued to slope up, as the trees continued to thin, there was a sound that grew increasingly louder. It began as a distant rumble, then grew to a faint growl, and by the time the road had run out, it was a proud, endless roar.
“Sweet Khetashe,” he whispered, staring up. And up. And up.
In four colossal columns, water fell from the sky. Pure blue ribboned by white froth, the columns fell from a shroud of mist that congealed overhead, concealing their origin. A great chasm yawned open before him, separating him from the waterfalls by the length of ten men. And on the other side of it loomed a sheer cliff face rising directly up into that mist-shrouded heaven.
“Incredible.” The word had even greater meaning coming from someone like Shuro. She stared up at the four falls with a child’s gaping wonder. “Where’s it all coming from?”
“Gods, maybe.” Chemoi walked ahead, apparently unimpressed. “Could be the source of the Lyre, even.” She stalked to the edge of the chasm, peered down. Mist rose from beneath just as surely as it fell from above. “This is the place, though.”
“What place?” Lenk asked.
“Those cultists kept talking about this place.” Chemoi veered to the right and started following the chasm’s edge. “Their leader wouldn’t shut up about it. Told them stories every night about how they’d ascend out of darkness and into heaven to be at Khoth-Kapira’s side.”
“They’re cultists,” Shuro said as she and Lenk followed. “That’s probably just metaphor.”
“Not the way he said it, it ain’t.”
They followed the edge until they came to a long stone bridge reaching out across the chasm. Peculiarly, it didn’t seem to reach the other side. And it didn’t lead to anything but another sheer stone face that rose up into nowhere.
Yet Chemoi went rushing down its length. Lenk and Shuro hurried to catch up, following her to the very end of the bridge.
There, fixed to the left side of its edge, stood a peculiar contraption. A frame of bronzed metal stood, tarnished by age but untouched by rust, anchored to the stone. It bent beneath the tension of several thick strands of what appeared to be translucent silk, unfrayed and glistening as droplets of mist coursed down it. Lenk would have called it a harp, if not for the fact that adorning one edge of the frame was some manner of device: a long plate that lay several metal rods across the silken strings.
“This is it.” Chemoi spoke loudly to be heard over the roar of the waterfalls. “They said some shit about a harp that called the angels.”
“What does it do?” Shuro asked, peering at the device.
“How the fuck should I know?” Chemoi shrugged. “Those guys were fucking crazy.”
Shuro stared at her flatly. “Well, thank goodness we brought you along, otherwise we might miss out on these little nuggets of wisdom.”
“You want nuggets, you can wait until I’ve eaten and then we’ll—”
“Shut up for a moment.” Lenk pushed his way between them, investigating the device. “Look at this thing here.”
He tapped the metal plate adorning the edge, and the rods quivered in response. “There’s some kind of thing on the plate here.”
“What kind of thing?” Shuro asked.
“I don’t know… looks almost like a key. If I can just—”
He could just.
And he did.
It took nothing more than a quick twist. The machine quivered, as though come to life. Lenk sprang backward, nearly drew his sword. But he and the two women remained still as the machine let out a sharp clicking sound.
The rods stiffened suddenly and drew backward, drawn by some manner of mechanism hidden within the frame. Tiny hooks at the tip of each rod caught each strand and plucked it. The strands quivered, sending flecks of water off them as five notes hummed out in harmony.
“The fuck did that do?” Chemoi muttered.
Something moved in the air before them: a shimmering of light as more droplets were flicked off something.
More strands, he saw. Each strand of the strange device ran from the top of its frame across the chasm to the sheer stone wall. And as each reverberating note reached the wall, he saw more shimmering. He walked to the edge of the bridge, peered out as far as he dared, and squinted, trying to see. Some sort of translucent material covered the stone face, running down it like a tapestry. It quivered with life as the sound ran down it, sending it glistening as though it were made of silk.
He hadn’t seen anything like that since—
“Cier’Djaal,” he whispered. His eyes shot wide in recognition. “The Silken Spire.” He stepped away from the edge. “Son of a bitch, that’s a fucking spider’s web.”
“What?” Shuro’s question was joined by the sound of her sword hissing out of its sheath. “What the hell did this thing just do, then?”
No need to ask.
They found out in another moment.
From the darkness of the chasm, it came. First as a distant groan of something very old waking from a very deep slumber. Then as a scraping sound as something dragged a large weight across the stone. And finally as a long green leg, thick and hairy and ending in a sharp spike.
