Black Halo

by Sykes, Sam

  And he had to have more.

  When he turned about, the first thing he noticed was her smile.

  ‘We never get to watch the mornings, do we?’ Kataria asked, sliding a lock of hair behind her long ear. ‘It’s always something else: a burning afternoon, a cold dawn, or a long night. We never get to sit down at just the right time when normal people get up.’

  ‘We’re not normal people,’ he replied, distracted.

  It was difficult to concentrate with every step she took closer to him. The moonlight clung to her like silk slipped in water, hugging every line of her body left exposed by her short green tunic. Her body was a battle of shadow and silver. He felt his eyes slide in his sockets, running over every muscle that pressed against her skin, counting every shallow contour of her figure.

  His gaze followed the line that ran down her abdomen, sliding to the shallow oval of her navel. His stare lingered there, contemplating the translucent hairs that shimmered upon her skin. The night was sweltering.

  And she did not sweat a single drop.

  When he returned from his thoughts, she was close, nearly pressed against him.

  ‘We aren’t,’ she replied softly. ‘But that doesn’t mean we must be expected to not enjoy a morning, does it? Don’t we deserve to see the sun rise?’

  His breath, previously stale with disease, drew in her scent on a cool and gentle inhale. She smelled pleasant, of leaves on rivers and wind over the sea. His eyelids twitched in time with his nostrils, as though something within him spastically flailed out in an attempt to seize control of his face and turn it away from her.

  ‘This doesn’t sound like you.’ His whisper was a thunderous echo off her face. ‘Not after what you said on the boat.’

  ‘I regret those words,’ she replied.

  ‘You never regret anything.’

  ‘Consider my problems,’ she said. ‘I am just like you. Small, weak and made of the same degenerate meat. I share your fears, I share your terrors …’

  ‘This isn’t you,’ Lenk whispered, his voice hot and frantic. ‘This isn’t you.’

  ‘And you’ – she ignored him as her hands went to the hem of her shirt, her face split apart with a broad smile – ‘share my meat.’

  His confusion was lost in her cackle, attention seized by her hands as they pulled her tunic up over her head and tossed it aside, exposing the slender body beneath. His eyes blinked wildly of their own volition, and with each flutter of the eyelids, she changed beneath him. Her breasts twitched and writhed under his gaze for three blinks.

  By the fourth, they blinked back at him.

  Eels, perhaps? Snakes? He could contemplate their nature for one more blink before they launched from her chest, jaws gaping in silent, gasping shrieks forced between tiny, serrated teeth. His own scream, he felt, was nothing more than a fevered sucking of air through the hole that was quickly torn in his throat by their vicelike jaws.

  His hands were iron, their bodies were water. He slapped, clawed, raked at them. They chewed, rent, ripped his flesh, brazenly ignoring his desperation. He felt blood weep from his face and mingle with his sweat in thick, greasy tears.

  He collapsed under the assault of their teeth and her shrieking laughter, curling up like a terrified, squealing piglet, marinating. He shivered through his tensed body, expecting the teeth to return at any moment and start raking his back and chewing on his spine.

  The agony never came. Nor did the death he was certain would come from having one’s face torn off and eaten. He reached up and touched his face, feeling greasy and sticky skin beneath. He looked up.

  She, or whatever had been posing as her, was gone.

  Shaking, he pulled himself to his hands and feet and crawled to the brook, peering in. His face was red, smeared with blood, but from long lines that raced down his cheeks. Long lines, he thought as he noticed his hands, that perfectly matched the strip of fingernails glutted with skin.

  Though it seemed slightly redundant to say so after engaging in philosophical debate with a simian and committing bodily assault on a tree, Lenk felt the need to collapse onto his back and mutter in a feverish whisper.

  ‘You’re losing it, friend.’

  ‘Understatement.’

  Lenk blinked at the voice, coldly familiar after such a long and fiery silence inside his head. He fought the urge to smile, to revel in the return of a more intimate madness. It didn’t matter how hard he strained to resist, though; the voice sensed it.

  ‘Seems pointless to try to resist.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Lenk asked.

  ‘Always with you.’

  ‘Then you saw … all that?’

  ‘Know what you know.’

  ‘Your thoughts?’

  ‘Our thoughts.’

  ‘You know what I meant.’

  ‘The point is no less valid. Nothing that has happened tonight was real.’

  ‘It seemed so—’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘How do you figure?’

  ‘For one, she’s dead. Fact.’

  ‘It’s a distinct possibility.’

  ‘A certainty. Listen to reason.’

  ‘Greenhair said she didn’t find any other bodies. It’s perfectly sane to believe the others might be alive.’

  ‘One would be hard-pressed to take advice on sanity from he who hears voices.’

  ‘Point.’

  ‘Referring to your dependence on them. Why bother insisting that they live?’

  ‘I … need them. They watch my back, help me during the hard times.’

  ‘We have each other.’

  ‘We have nothing but hard times.’

  ‘Their deaths are clearly a sign from heaven. We waste time and effort mourning them.’

  ‘No one’s mourning anyone yet. They could still be alive.’

  ‘We could be back in Toha right now if not for them, the book safe and away where it belongs and our body aching to wreak vengeance upon the next blight that stains the earth. They are a hindrance.’

  ‘No, they aren’t.’

  ‘It is them who needs us. They wouldn’t survive without us. They didn’t survive without us. They are useless.’

  ‘No, they aren’t!’

  ‘We have our duties. We have our blights to cleanse. The demons fear us, fear what we do to them. We were created to cleanse the earth of impurities. These companions can only be called thus because they were considerate enough to cleanse themselves for us. They’re better off dead.’

  ‘No, they aren’t!’

  The last echoes of the voice vanished, forced out of his mind as he threw himself into a fervent rampage of thought. He sprang to his feet, began to pace back and forth, muttering to himself.

  ‘Think, think … you don’t need that thing. Think … it’s hard to think. So hot …’ He snarled, thumped his temple. ‘Think! This isn’t just fever causing the hallucinations. How do you know?’ He ran a finger at one of his scratches. ‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

  ‘No,’ he answered himself. ‘Nothing makes sense.’ He gritted his teeth, the effort of thought seeming to cause his brain to boil. ‘You were hallucinating strange things, thoughts that never occurred to you before. Why is that odd?

  ‘Because hallucinations are a product of the mind, are they not?’ He nodded vigorously to himself. ‘You can’t hallucinate something you don’t know, can you?’ He shook his head violently. ‘No, not at all. You can’t hallucinate monkeys with philosophical ideas or trees with latent desires for peace, or …

  ‘Kataria.’ He blinked, eyes sizzling with the effort. ‘She wasn’t wearing her leathers when you saw her. You’ve never seen her without them, have you? No, you haven’t. Well, maybe once, but you always think of her in them, don’t you?’ He threw his head back. ‘What does all this say to us? Hallucination of things that are not the product of your disease or your mind? Either you’re dead and this is some rather infinitely subtle and frustrating hell as opposed to the whole �
�lakes of fire and sodomised with a pitchfork” thing, or, much more likely …’

  ‘Someone else is inside your head.’

  His breath went short at the realisation. The world seemed very cold at that moment.

  He glanced down at the brook. Eyes cloudy with ice stared back. A thin, frozen sheet crowned the water. As he leaned down to inspect it, it grew harder, whiter, louder.

  Ice doesn’t talk.

  But this one did, voices ensconced between each crackling hiss as the frost formed thicker, denser. They spoke in hushes, as though they groaned from a place far below the ice, far below the earth. And they spoke in hateful, angry whispers, speaking of treachery, of distrust. He felt their loathing, their fury, but they spoke a language he only barely understood in fragments and whispers.

  He stared intently, trying to make them out. There was desperation in them, as though they dearly wanted him to hear and would curse him with their hoary whispers if he didn’t expend every last ounce of his will to do so.

  As far as events that made him question his sanity went, this one wasn’t the worst.

  ‘What?’ he whispered to it. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Survive,’ something whispered back.

  ‘Yo! Sa-klea!’

  ‘What?’ Lenk whispered.

  ‘Didn’t say anything,’ the voice replied.

  ‘Not you. The ice.’ He looked up, glancing about. ‘Or … someone.’

  ‘Dasso?’

  ‘Hide,’ Lenk whispered.

  ‘Sound advice,’ the voice agreed.

  Too weary to run, Lenk limped behind a nearby rock, snatching up his sword as he did. No sooner had he pressed his belly against the forest floor than he saw the leaves of the underbrush rustle and stir.

  Whatever emerged from the foliage did so with casual ease inappropriate for such dense greenery. Its features were indecipherable through the gloom, save for its rather impressive height and lanky, slightly hunched build.

  Denaos? He quickly discounted that thought; the rogue wouldn’t enter so recklessly. Any further resemblance the creature might have borne to Lenk’s companion was banished as it set a long-toed, green foot into the moonlit clearing.

  Even as it stepped fully into the light, Lenk was at a loss as to its identity. It stood tall on two long, thick legs, like a man, but that was all the resemblance to humanity it bore. Its scales, like tiny emeralds sewn together, were stretched hard over lean muscle, exposed save for the loincloth it wore at its hips, from which a long, lashing tail protruded.

  Its head, large and reptilian, swung back and forth, two hard yellow eyes peering through the darkness; a limp beard of scaly flesh dangled beneath its chin. It held a spear, little more than a sharpened stick, in two clawed hands as it searched the night.

  Suddenly, its gaze came to a halt upon Lenk’s hiding place. His blood froze; chilled for the stare, frigid for the sudden sight of red splotches upon its chest and hands.

  If the creature saw Lenk, it gave no indication. Instead, it swivelled its head back to the underbrush and croaked out something in a gravelly, rasping voice.

  ‘Sa-klea,’ it hissed. ‘Na-ah man-eh heah.’

  The brush rustled again and a second creature, nearly identical to the first, slinked out into the clearing. It swept its gaze about, scratched its scaly beard.

  ‘Dasso. Noh man-eh.’ It shook its head and sighed. ‘Kai-ja.’ It raised two fingers and pressed them against the side of its head in pantomime of ears as it made a show of baring its teeth. ‘Lah shict-wa noh samaila.’

  His eyes lit up at the word, spoken with an ire he had felt pass his own lips more than once.

  Shict, he thought. They said ‘shict.’ Did they find her?

  He saw the ruby hues of the spatters upon their chests. Lenk felt his heart turn to a cold lump of ice.

  That chill lasted for all of the time it took him to seize his sword and tighten his muscles. His temper boiled with his brain, fevered rage clutched his head as he clutched his weapon. He made a move to rise, but the pain in his thigh was too great for his fury to overcome. He fell to one knee, biting back a shriek of agony as he did.

  ‘What was that supposed to be?’ the voice hissed.

  ‘They killed her … they killed her,’ he replied through clenched teeth.

  ‘She is dead.’

  ‘They killed her …’

  ‘Is that important? That she is dead? Or is what is important that they must die?’

  ‘Ka-a, ka-a,’ one of the scaly creatures sighed as it knelt by the brook and brought a handful of water to its lips. ‘Utuu ah-ka, ja?’

  ‘Ka-a,’ the second one apparently agreed, hefting its spear.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lenk muttered.

  ‘She is dead. We are in agreement. Now vengeance is craved.’

  ‘And you want to stop me?’

  ‘Only from getting killed. Vengeance is noble.’

  ‘Vengeance is pure,’ Lenk agreed.

  ‘Ka-a,’ the first one muttered again, rising to its feet. ‘Utuu ah. Tuwa, uut fu-uh mah Togu.’

  ‘Maat?’ The second looked indignant for a moment before sighing. ‘Kai-ja. Poyok.’

  The first one bobbed its bearded head and turned on a large, flat foot. It slinked into the underbrush as it had emerged, like a serpent through water. Its companion moved to follow, taking a moment to sweep its amber gaze over its shoulder. It narrowed its eyes upon Lenk’s rock for a moment before it, too, slid into the underbrush.

  ‘Vengeance …’ the voice began.

  ‘Requires patience,’ Lenk finished.

  He huddled up against his rock, snatching up a nearby tuber and chewing on it softly, as much as in memory of Kataria as for sustenance. Tonight, he would rest and recuperate. Tomorrow, he would search.

  He would search for Sebast. He would search for his companions. If he found neither, he would search for bodies.

  If the lizard-things had left nothing, then he would search for them.

  He would find them. He would ask them.

  And they would tell him, Lenk resolved, when they all held hands and plummeted into lakes of fire together.

  Eleven

  THE INOPPORTUNE

  CONSCIENCE

  Reasonable men had qualities that made them what they were. A reasonable man was a man of faith over doubt, of logic over faith, and honesty over logic. With these three, a reasonable man was a man who was prepared for all challenges, with force over weakness, reason over force, and personality over reason.

  Assuming he had all three.

  Denaos liked to consider himself a reasonable man.

  It was around that last bit that he found himself lacking. And, as a reasonable man without honesty, Denaos turned to running.

  He hadn’t been intending to, of course. The plan, shortsighted as it was, was to get Dreadaeleon far away from whatever was sending him into fits of unconscious babbling with intermittent bursts of waking, wailing pain. They had done that, dragging him into the forest. From there, the plan became survival: find water for Dreadaeleon, food for themselves.

  He had liked that plan. He had offered to go searching. It would give him a lot of time out in the woods, alone with his bottle.

  Then Asper had to go and ruin everything.

  *

  ‘Hot, hot, hot,’ Dreadaeleon had been whispering, as he had been since he collapsed on the beach. ‘Hot, hot …’

  ‘Why does he keep doing that?’ Denaos had asked.

  ‘Shock, mild trauma,’ Asper had replied. ‘It’s my second problem.’

  ‘The first being?’

  She had glowered at him, adjusting the wizard over her shoulder. ‘Mostly that you aren’t helping me carry him.’

  ‘We agreed we would divide the workload. You carry him. I scout ahead.’

  ‘You haven’t found anything.’

  Denaos had smacked his lips, glanced about the forest’s edge and pointed. ‘There’s a rock.’

  ‘Look, just tak
e him for a while.’ She had grunted, laying the unconscious wizard down and propping him against a tree. ‘He’s not exactly tiny, you know.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t know,’ Denaos had replied. ‘From here, he looks decidedly wee.’ He glanced at the dark stain on the boy’s trousers. ‘In every possible sense of the word.’

  ‘Are you planning on taking him at all?’ she had demanded.

  ‘Once he dries out, sure. In the meantime, his sodden trousers are the heaviest part of him. What’s the problem?’

  She had glowered at him before turning to the wizard. ‘You shouldn’t make fun of him. He’s done more for us than we know.’ She glanced to the burning torch in the rogue’s hand. ‘He lit that.’

  ‘I don’t think he meant to,’ Denaos had replied, rubbing at a sooty spot where he had narrowly avoided the boy’s first magical outburst. ‘And afterward, he pissed himself and fell back into a coma. As contributions go, I’ll call it valued, but not invaluable.’

  ‘He can’t help it,’ she had growled. ‘He’s got … I don’t know, some magic thing’s happened to him.’

  ‘When did this happen again?’

  She slowly lowered her left arm from the boy’s forehead. ‘It’s not important.’ She frowned. ‘He’s still got a fever, though. We can rest for a moment, but we shouldn’t dawdle.’

  ‘Why not? It’s not like he’s going anywhere.’

  ‘It’d be more accurate to say,’ she had replied, turning a scowl upon him, ‘that I’d prefer not to spend any more time in your company than I absolutely have to.’

  ‘As though yours is such a sound investment of my time.’

  ‘At least I didn’t threaten to kill you.’

  ‘Are you still on that?’ He had shrugged. ‘What’s a little death threat between friends?’

  ‘If it had come from Kat or Gariath, it would have meant nothing. But it was you.’

  The last word had been flung from her lips like a sentimental hatchet, sticking in his skull and quivering. He had blinked, looked at her carefully.

  ‘So what?’

  And she had looked back at him. Her eyes had been half-closed, as if simultaneously trying to hide the hurt in her stare and ward her from the question he had posed. It had not been the first time he had seen that stare, but it had been the first time he had seen it in her eyes.