An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  He stalked over and snatched the sword up, unsheathing it and trailing an admiring touch over its edge as he did, iridescence alive as ever.

  “Doubly rude,” Shkarag hissed.

  Tirdad started to rebuke her, but decided that’d be unfair. “Forgive me,” he said, scowl softening but still trained on the blade. “You didn’t deserve that. I never did get around to explaining the danger. This sword is all that stands between me and annihilation. I’m not talking mere death here, Shkarag. I’m talking the end of my soul.” He sheathed the blade inch by inch, watching the colors crawl across the starling-black as he did, then turned his gaze on her. “So please don’t venture far with it.”

  “Right here,” Shkarag said, clearly dissatisfied with his apology. “Didn’t go venture like some, like some arms dealer posing as a merchant and—” She yawned, fangs flaring. “Mmn. And using some mighty unconvincing lines like, ‘These fifty swords are sacred jewelry where I come from.’”

  “Just do me a favour and promise to keep it near me at all times. Can you do that for me?”

  Shkarag tilted her head. “Maybe.”

  Tirdad expelled a sigh and shook his head. “I pray that’s a positive maybe, Shkarag. This is my existence we’re talking about.”

  She got up with the help of her spear, looking ragged with sleep deprivation. “Maybe,” she said with a lilt that suggested she might heed his words. She tilted further, considering the scabbard as he reattached it to his sword belt. “You’re a—” she croaked.

  “A what now?”

  “I’m saying—” Another croak cut her off.

  “I don’t follow.”

  Shkarag released a hiss. She shrugged on her bag and started off like she knew the way, which she decidedly did not.

  “Where are you going?” asked Tirdad.

  She tossed a hand in the direction she was headed.

  The planet-reckoner went to retrieve his gear—what little he had anyway—and stood at the opposite end of the clearing. “The path’s over here,” he called.

  Shkarag threw a glare over her shoulder that swiftly transitioned to the uncomfortable realization a person gets when they’ve stormed off into a pantry. “Oh.” She ambled over with an affectedly casual gait.

  With her in tow, he ventured back into the woods on a course that rounded the side of the mountain they’d been ascending. The thicket soon gave way to an old cliffside path that, while overgrown, afforded a breathtaking view and more importantly a break from the cramped game trails.

  Where the pair emerged, mountainsides with forests vibrant like colonies of moss sloped down to meet in a narrow valley. There, they thinned to patches surrounded by a carpet of flowers yellow as yolk. An osprey circled over one such patch, its excited yips carrying to every end of the valley. At the higher altitudes, the treeline prostrated before peaks that were bald, crimped, and powdered with snow.

  “Not the worst scenery,” Tirdad mused. “And there’s an osprey soaring over there.” He pointed, though he figured she had better sight than he. “Imagine you’ll be out in search of its clutch.”

  “. . .”

  “No? I remember when I was young, I’d see them circl—”

  “How does . . .” Shkarag cut in. She made a claw of her hand, jabbing her spear in the direction of the bird. “Kestrel isn’t an osprey. Osprey are fishermen, you . . . you . . . how can you grow up not knowing a fisherman from a hunter?”

  “I—”

  “See water down there? A pond? Šo-stinking fish bazaar?”

  Tirdad threw her a glare. “Stop fucking interrupting me. I was only trying to relate. Besides,” he squinted at the plot of flowers below the kestrel, “there’s a lake down there after all.”

  Shkarag followed his gaze, and he did his utmost to swallow a grin when after a few minutes of limping along she was still concentrating on that point.

  “I suppose it could be an osprey after all,” he said, beginning to think her eyesight wasn’t nearly as sharp as he’d assumed, and deciding to have a joke at her expense. “Don’t think we’d see a kestrel circling over a lake now would we?” He could tell from her expression that she was beginning to doubt herself.

  “Making kestrel calls,” she said, vehement in her insistence, but yielding to the possibility of being wrong in her body language. Shkarag cocked her ear toward the valley, wringing her spear with both hands. “Kestrel calls.”

  Tirdad continued without another word, letting her stew in her uncertainty awhile. A victory worth relishing. That’s what she got for getting cranky with him over something so trivial as a misidentified bird. When at last their cliffside path disappeared into a forest, she drew to a halt to further puzzle over his lie.

  “Strange that you’d make such a mistake,” said Tirdad, threading some affected disappointment into his voice. He stood by her side, staring as she did at the kestrel. “You’re named after a bird of prey after all. I’d always assumed you were an expert. Guess I was mistaken.”

  Evidently, he’d botched the act. Shkarag narrowed her eyes. “You quack,” she said. “You šo-damned quack convincing me.”

  Some backlash was to be expected, which made the lopsided grin that stole her cheeks all the more striking. She lit up: first beaming at him, then at the bird. “A kestrel after all,” she hummed. “A kestrel tried and true.” Shkarag faced Tirdad again and hefted her axe. “Haft to fly off the handle you try your quackery again.”

  He backed away instinctively, but her playfulness was manifest in the double pun. “Try it and I’ll cut you down in one fell swoop,” he handily shot back.

  Shkarag’s response won the contest. She astonished him with a laugh—about as normal and honest as a laugh could be besides the suggestion of a hiss somewhere in its depths. It was neither drawn out nor boisterous, but it had the effect of a guffaw. If he’d heard her laugh in the past, he couldn’t recall, and surely never so merrily.

  She canted at him, further keeling that uneven grin. “Think you’re not such a pinecone fucker after all. You grew up so quickly. I . . .” Her stare flicked away, darting over his shoulder for a moment before fluttering on him once again. “Think I like you better this way.”

  “I’m surprised you’d admit to liking me at all,” said Tirdad, and he meant it. This came as an all too welcome surprise.

  Shkarag nodded gravely, though her grin persisted. “Dark times.”

  She limped by at that. Tirdad followed in quiet rumination, giving pause to the relaxed laughter he’d just witnessed. In her relationships, what few he knew of, she’d come off as withdrawn and paranoid at best. Sure, he had eventually gained some rapport, but he was under no illusions when it came to the frailty of her trust. So that crooked grin and that comfortable laugh were achievements to be proud of.

  Here, the forest took on a personality distinct and dreamlike. Ironwood, with its trunks of sinews ribboning just beneath the surface, ruled this place. Unlike the earlier thicket, the trees were spaced far enough apart that their lichen-choked branches could reach out freely to mingle with their neighbors. The canopy that resulted filtered all but the most resilient sunlight, most of it content to gild the higher leaves.

  In that thick, refreshingly cool shade, the pair travelled side by side. Where undergrowth had hindered their progress before, they were now treated to a floor chiefly covered with dried leaves.

  Still meditating, Tirdad reached an unexpected conclusion—one that marked a departure from the sorry path Ashtadukht had taken. He yet grieved for his cousin. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and come to the realization that she was gone and he powerless to do anything about it. Even so, Tirdad concluded that her death, while a tragedy he would undo if he had the power, had done some good.

  He and Shkarag seemed closer now than ever; her passing had seeded their friendship. What’s more, the half-div had improved. She was troubled, likely hopelessly so, but she had found something of herself where before he had seen her on the brink of fallin
g apart.

  A leisurely pace had them well within in the realm of the ironwood by sunset. Dimly lit by day, it became tenebrous by night. Tirdad couldn’t see so much as a hand’s breadth in front of him.

  “Shkarag,” he said. “Hold on a minute. I’m walking blind here.”

  The dead leaves ceased their crackling.

  Tirdad reached out to where she’d been, but the leaves stirred and he caught only air. “Shkarag?”

  “. . .” The hush that answered did so with the carriage of an empty reply.

  “All right, Shkarag. Quit fooling around. Where are you?”

  Another rustle. “. . .”

  “Are you screwing with me?” he asked.

  “. . .”

  “Fine. Here’s as good a place as any to spend the night.”

  “Maybe,” she finally replied, breathing hoarse and heavy.

  “Would you tell me why you always ign—” Tirdad began to lie down when he was interrupted.

  „.ترسو”

  “Huh?” said Tirdad.

  “SHE RAN.”

  “A coward dies a thousand deaths.”

  “Lower-than-filth.”

  “. . . and the eggs you once shared are centuries-rotten. The ties . . .”

  “BETRAYAL BETRAYAL BETRAYAL.”

  “You-pissed-on-your-bond.”

  “take responsibility.”

  “. . . carved out a place in this world. A place for the two of you to . . .”

  “Unworthy of happiness.”

  “CAN’T HIDE ANYMORE.”

  “She ran and ran andranandranandranandranandran.”

  “Coward!”

  “trembling again.”

  „.ترسو”

  “There-is-no-escape.”

  “you ran!”

  “DISGRACEFUL.”

  A din of voices bayed, coaxed, orated, and whispered from the darkness, each distinguishable from the next. Ugliness was their common thread.

  “What in the seven climes is going on?” asked Tirdad. He brandished his sword, it drumming in his grip, and turned a circle. “Shkarag? What the fuck is this?”

  A sickly glow like spoiled yogurt spilled around the trees just ahead, fainter than it should have been for all its aggression. Shkarag was on bended knee, spear and axe readied but visibly shaking. “D-don’t,” she stuttered. “No more. P-please d-d-d-don’t.”

  “Shkarag?” Tirdad knelt beside her. Her eyes were wide, and though she pulled her head away, they never left the glow. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What’s happening?”

  She whimpered. “N-not in f-f-front of . . . I . . .”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze, though it elicited no response. Tirdad turned a worried frown on the glow. Whatever it was, it had her paralyzed with a terror unlike anything he’d ever seen in the half-div. Another squeeze and he inserted himself between her and what approached. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll get through this to—” His confidence and in turn his voice plummeted when the source showed itself. “—gether.”

  Out writhed a nightmare creature. A huge disembodied head effortlessly splintered branches as it passed between trees to bear down on them. Tirdad had seen a great many divs in his travels, but never something so horrific. It might’ve resembled Shkarag if she were beheaded and left for carrion to infest her flesh and scales, frowning fangs broken and awry, eye sockets like bottomless pits of starling-black that leaked the stuff generously—themselves faces twisted in horror. While at first it seemed to float, a colony of chittering scales hung from its head like imitation tresses to slither it closer.

  The voices, which had persisted in their multifarious abuses, now spoke as one. “Kill yourself,” they said.

  Tirdad threatened it with the tip of his sword. He raised his chin as Ashtadukht had so often when invoking her title. “I’m a planet-reckoner,” he said, projecting the same air of authority. “I’ve dispatched more divs than I can recall. So you’d best turn back before you’re just another forgotten notch.”

  “I-I have,” said Shkarag from his rear, speaking as if she were pleading for her life before a king’s throne. “E-e-e-every—”

  “Liar!” cried the voices. The face was quickly upon them, and as sickening as it looked from afar, it managed to be all the more hideous now that it towered uncomfortably close, branches snapping and creaking around it. Its proximity afforded him each burrowing grub that emerged from pores like a million faces in the throes of agony, their tiny feet wriggling to gain purchase on its pale surface, which gushed like wet paint around the streams of starling-black. “You will kill yourselves,” the voices declared. “We will show you the way.”

  That was more than enough to convince Tirdad that this div meant them ill. He lashed out with a routine unpolished from lack of practice, but which nevertheless struck home. The thrusts scored three punctures in its hide, briefly revealing the starling-black beneath before closing as swiftly as he’d opened them. Tirdad made another attempt: this time with a series of sweeping slashes that rent long but equally temporary cuts. It watched impassively.

  “Fuck,” he said, shuffling back to stand immediately in front of Shkarag.

  “We will show you the way,” the voices repeated, harsh and clear within their ongoing abuse.

  Tirdad cast over his shoulder to confirm that Shkarag was still frozen in place. “Fuck.”

  He concentrated on his visit to the cosmos, on Saturn, on the celestial theatre, on the clashing divs and yazatas, on the whole experience, and most of all on his sword. Surely, there had to be some way for him to invoke his planet-reckoning. All to no effect. He would have blundered further if the head hadn’t surged forward.

  Breathing a curse, he spun away and snatched up Shkarag, stumbling at the unexpected weight of her armor, but catching himself and fleeing at a sprint. Now that he’d left the div’s disgusting glow, he ran blindly through the forest. Twice, he clipped a tree that nearly knocked him off his feet and would surely leave some mean bruises on Shkarag. The terror that paralyzed her seized him in his flight—all the trappings of a nightmare beading cold sweat on his brow. He ran until his lungs burned, the damning voices biting the fringes of his hearing. Who knows how long he went on, but the thought of that thing at his heels drove him well past his limits.

  When finally he chanced a look back, the head had disappeared. Tirdad came to a halt and veritably dropped Shkarag. Even in the pitch black his sight was blurred and awash with those wretched stars. “What,” he asked between breaths, “in the seven fucking climes was that?”

  She panted so intensely it drowned him out. The thought came to him belatedly that she hadn’t exerted herself at all. “You’re hyperventilating,” he said, as soothingly as he could manage while sucking in great gulps of air. “You need to calm down.”

  Only after did he figure telling someone to calm down had likely never actually had the effect since time immemorial. Tirdad scanned for the div, but couldn’t make out even the faintest light. He prayed he’d lost it.

  “Where are your eggs?” he asked. Only her runaway panting answered. Tirdad was hesitant to touch her like this, but he dare not light a torch. So he reached out, and to his relief he found only her arm. She shook uncontrollably. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he assured her. “You’re safe. It’s gone.”

  Last he recalled, she kept a few pouches along her belt. Supposing they were his best bet for finding her eggs, he began to feel his way down before pausing to warn her. “Listen, I’m going to—”

  Her panting had ceased. The rings of her mail slid along his fingertips before moving out of reach. A curt rustle announced she’d fallen over.

  “Shkarag?” Tirdad crawled to her side. “Are you all right?”

  This time, the hush that answered was thin and meaningless.

  He leaned over and turned his ear to listen for breathing; what he heard was smooth and relaxed. Tirdad inhaled so deeply it topped off his lungs and
ached in his ribs, then released it in a measured stream. He repeated this seven times—he was counting—before the blood-curdling div reappeared directly in front of him.

  Instinct stole his muscles, spent as they were. Tirdad hefted the half-div and put as much ground as he could between him and whatever manner of suicide the abomination had planned for them. To his dismay, the sickly glow followed. At the same time illuminating his escape and demonstrating its futility, it buoyed his heart in his throat.

  “Dizzy,” said Shkarag, in the second of consciousness before horror reclaimed her.

  “You fainted,” Tirdad heaved between breaths. A bed of fallen leaves rushed beneath him as he wove between ironwood—their sinews now seeming as if they were extensions of the creature shooting up to impede him just beyond the reach of the glow. “It’s right behind us,” he said. “How do we defeat it?”

  “Wants me. Throw me to the hounds.”

  “Wh—” A second of bewilderment distracted him from an oncoming trunk, which he collided with directly. Shkarag was thrown from his arms, and he knocked flat on his back. “Ugh,” he groaned, vision swimming.

  The voices returned in a mad deluge, with every current ending at, “We will show you the way.” The div entered his vision, staring down with those portentous sockets that somehow gave the impression this beast had been normal until it’d been shown the way—that he’d continue the legacy. Its frowning maw parted, forcing grubs out of their burrows and . . .

  It dispersed in a plume of smoke.

  “What?” He sat up with a groan, and what Shkarag had said at the outset came to him with clarity: can’t travel and heal at the same time. He clutched his chest. “Nngh.”

  “Hope you learned your lesson,” said a voice sweet as a child’s but stern as a mother’s. “Bringing a div to this sacred place. Even going as far as sorcery. You are better than this, Tirdad.”

  “How do you? Who?” Tirdad faced the source, and it occurred to him then that the nature of the glow had changed: it had been purified. A humanoid the size of an adolescent and assembled from dead leaves stood hands on hips between a pair of ironwood. Light emanated from within its chest like the sun through treetops.