Black Halo

by Sykes, Sam

  ‘I am Shen.’

  Gariath stared at the darkness, listening for the sound of oars dipping into water through the distant carnage of the deck and the flesh-deep groan of the Akaneed. And through it all, he could hear the voice of the grandfather, speaking with such closeness as to suggest the spirit was right next to him.

  ‘What does a Rhega do, Wisest?’

  His answer came slowly, his eyes and voice cast into the darkness.

  ‘Life is precious,’ Gariath whispered. ‘A Rhega lives.’

  ‘Is it, Wisest?’

  Gariath became distinctly aware of the two creatures alone on the ship behind him, so weak, so helpless. He had fought to defend them moments ago. He had chosen them, moments ago. He had been one of them moments ago.

  Now, he was Rhega.

  ‘Life is precious, Wisest,’ the grandfather reminded him.

  Without looking back, Gariath muttered, ‘To those who earn it.’

  And then hurled himself into the water, pursuing the darkness.

  Dreadaeleon couldn’t think.

  Ordinarily, he would chastise himself for such a thing. He was, theoretically, the smart one and took an immense amount of pride in living up to that expectation.

  Still, between the lingering crackle of electricity and the deep-throated groan of the wounded Akaneed, the stench of brimstone caked with the coppery odour of blood and the vast, vast number of corpses on the deck, he found himself hard-pressed to assign himself any blame.

  His senses were overwhelmed, not merely blinded and deafened by the chaos of the deck, but struck dull in the mind. The continuous clash of magical energies of lightning, fire, frost and the occasional exploding paper crane had bathed his brain in a bright crimson light that he sought to force a thought through.

  Moments ago, he had felt something else: a surge of something that he had never felt before, a bright inky black stain on the endless sheet of red. It was new, carrying a stinging, clean pain that always came attached to unknown agonies.

  And yet … had he never felt this before? he wondered.

  He recalled vague hints of it, here and there: errant black patches in his vision that came, agonised, and left instantly. He recalled it in Irontide before, on the beach with Asper …

  Asper, he thought. I should be saving Asper, shouldn’t I? That’s what we came here to do … Where is she? What was the plan? Damn it, why can’t I think straight?

  He cursed himself, despite the fact that he knew only an insane person could think straight in these conditions and Gariath had already leapt overboard. Lenk, however …

  Where was he, anyway? There was something wrong with him, surely, but what had it been?

  Clearly, if anything was to be done, it was going to have to be done by someone with a rational mind, keen intellect and preferably enough power to level a small ship.

  Bralston, however, seemed a tad preoccupied, if the sudden shape of his cloak-clad body hurtling towards Dreadaeleon was any indication.

  He darted to the side as Bralston struck the mast bodily, his form, singed and smoking, sinking to the deck. The fire in his eyes waned and flickered as he struggled to keep them and the power within them conscious.

  Dreadaeleon nearly jumped when the Librarian turned them upon him.

  ‘Your thoughts?’ Bralston asked.

  ‘Run,’ Dreadaeleon said.

  ‘Venarium law permits no retreat.’

  ‘He … uh … he’s not getting tired.’

  ‘Confirming my hypothesis. The stones feed him.’

  ‘Their power can’t be limitless.’

  ‘They seem to be.’

  ‘No,’ Dreadaeleon said, shaking his head. ‘That can’t be right, I’ve seen them—’

  ‘Seen them what, concomitant?’

  It was too late to lie, Dreadaeleon knew the instant he saw the subtle, scrutinising narrowing of the Librarian’s eye. It would have seemed a good time to tell everything about the red stone, how it drained him of his power, how it had tainted his body, how he, too, had broken the Laws by using it.

  That might have been a matter to discuss when there were decidedly less flaming-eyed wizards approaching, however.

  Truly, aside from an added slowness to his step, Sheraptus looked no worse for wear as he strode toward them. Of course, Dreadaeleon thought, that’s probably just how he always moves, all slow and confident, the asshole.

  ‘I find myself running out of things to learn about your breed,’ the longface said calmly.

  Whether Bralston saw an opportunity in the longface’s easy stride, or was merely desperate and stubborn, he acted regardless. His hand whipped out, sending a paper crane fluttering from his grasp.

  Even if Sheraptus hadn’t seen the movement, someone else had. A longface previously motionless upon the deck rose suddenly with a wordless cry of warning for her master. The paper crane found her, latched upon her throat and began to glow bright red, a tick gorging itself with blood. In one moment, it sizzled upon her flesh. In one more, she whimpered another meaningless phrase to Sheraptus.

  And in less than a moment, she came undone.

  Sinew unthreaded, bones disconnected, flesh segmented itself in a spray. With only a sound that resembled the pop of a bottle, the longface erupted into pieces.

  They flew into the air, and stayed there.

  Sheraptus, unblinking, simply waved a hand, causing the air to ripple and suspend the remains of his warrior in an eerily gentle float. Slowly, the dead stirred under his feet. Bodies trembled, weapons clattered, all rising up to float around him like bleeding flowers upon a pond.

  ‘Your denial of the obvious is charming,’ he whispered sharply, ‘but only to a point. To know why you do this, futile as it is, requires a certain kind of patience.’ He narrowed his stare to thin, fiery slips. ‘I dearly wish I possessed such a thing.’

  At another word, an incomprehensible alien bellow, the dead came to horrific, swirling life. The bodies flailed limply, heedless of swords rending their dead flesh, as flesh, sinew and iron enveloped him in a whirlwind of purple and grey.

  A hurricane of the dead, with him the merciless and unblinking eye, he began to approach the wizards.

  ‘Suggestions?’ Bralston asked in a way Dreadaeleon felt far too calm for the situation.

  Perhaps such a calm was infectious enough to keep Dreadaeleon from hurling himself screaming overboard. Perhaps it was infectious enough to allow him to see the careful slowness to the longface’s step, his face screwed up in concentration as he strove to keep the whirlwind under control. He may be able to perform such a feat forever, but he couldn’t do it quickly.

  His power isn’t limitless, then.

  And that realisation made Dreadaeleon look with a clear mind to the wounded Akaneed, swaying and only now recovering from its bloodied stupor. Its agony turned to fury as it turned an angry single eye upon the deck.

  ‘Frost,’ he muttered, unsure to who.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give me cold!’ he said with sudden vigour. ‘Lots of it!’

  Sparing no more than a curious glance for the boy, Bralston complied. His chest grew large with breath before it came pouring out of his mouth in a great, freezing cloud. Dreadaeleon looked within it, seeing each shard of ice, each flake of frost, and the potential within them.

  He extended his hands, fingers making minute, barely visible movements as he began to shape the cold within the cloud, drawing freezing particles into flakes, flakes into crystals, crystals into chunks. He could feel the wind of Sheraptus’ cyclone, the scorn of the longface’s stare as he looked upon his prey. He could feel the roar of the Akaneed rumble through the deck as the serpent lurched forward.

  But the feel of cold was stronger, kept him focused as he melded chunks together, breaking them down and rejoining them in an instant, forcing them into one immense whole. His coattails had just begun to sway from the wind of the cyclone when he finished his creation, forming the frost into a freezing blue spear th
e size of a large hog.

  And with a thrust of his hands and a shouted word, he let it fly.

  Flakes tailing behind it, the icicle fled through the sky, screeching against the night. The Akaneed had just opened its mouth to let out a thundering howl when the freezing spear’s wailing flight was punctuated with a gut-wrenching sound.

  Dreadaeleon watched with more glee than was probably appropriate as the spear punched through the back of the creature’s head, its red-stained tip thrusting out through blue flesh. He held his breath as the Akaneed swayed, first away from the ship, teetered precariously as it seemed likely to fall back into the ocean, and then …

  His eyes widened, heart raced.

  ‘Move,’ he said.

  ‘Agreed,’ Bralston confirmed, seeing the same thing.

  Dreadaeleon felt himself seized by powerful hands as the Librarian wrapped his arms about his torso. He then felt the sensation of his feet leaving the deck as Bralston’s coat became wings, pulling them both aloft.

  From above, the boy beamed as his plan took shape. The joy he derived from Sheraptus’ scowl was compounded for the sheer fact that the longface’s eyes were upon him.

  And not on the immense weight of a dead, serpentine column that came thundering down on his ship.

  Dreadaeleon thought he might break out cackling when the longface turned about in time to see it.

  Whatever happened next was lost in a crash of waves and the thunder of splinters as the Akaneed’s head smashing down upon the deck like a blue comet, punching through the wood, ploughing through the hull, vanishing beneath the waves that rose up to claim the ship.

  ‘Well done, concomitant,’ Bralston said.

  ‘That probably did it,’ Dreadaeleon said, smirking to himself as he watched the corpse of the ship groan and begin to sink. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘We must assume so, for lack of any better information.’

  ‘Then let’s go down there and be certain.’

  ‘When the Laws are violated, there are no certainties.’

  ‘What do we do now, then?’

  ‘The Venarium will want a report,’ Bralston replied. ‘My orders,’ he paused, ‘our orders will dictate the next course of action, my immediate discretionary input accounted for.’

  ‘We won, then,’ Dreadaeleon whispered. ‘Or … wait, there was something I was supposed to do, wasn’t there?’

  ‘There were others on the ship, I believe. I see them back on the beach,’ Bralston replied. ‘Associates?’

  ‘Yes, but there were …’ Dreadaeleon shook his head. ‘It’s still hard to think.’

  ‘There were tremendous amounts of energies released tonight, more than most members are equipped to handle. Take some pride in the fact that you are still conscious, if not totally aware, concomitant.’

  ‘Right …’ Dreadaeleon nodded. ‘Right, I feel …’

  That phrase lingered on the night wind as Bralston swept about, leather wings flapping and bearing the two wizards towards the shore, neither of them taking any note of a pair of solemn blue eyes staring at them from a great wooden corpse.

  ‘I guess,’ Lenk whispered, ‘that’s that.’

  Through the groan of wood, the splintering of the ship’s ribs and the roar of great, gushing wounds filling with salt, he could hear a reply.

  ‘You’re surprised?’

  Was the night cold or hot, he wondered? Should he feel as warm as he did at the sound inside his head?

  ‘I … came for them, didn’t I? I came for her. And she just—’

  ‘Left you. But it wasn’t just her.’

  ‘No, they all did, didn’t they?’

  ‘Distractions.’ The night turned freezing. ‘As we already knew.’

  ‘I remember … I trusted them, once, didn’t I? Towards the end there, I was enjoying their company. We were going to go back to the mainland together. Things were going to be all right, weren’t they?’

  ‘Not your fate.’

  ‘Not our duty.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  Water was seeping up around him, licking at his boots. The mast behind him started to groan; its foundations shattered, it protested once, then came crashing down to smash into the ship’s cabin. The world was crumbling beneath him and he stood facing the cold darkness below, alone.

  ‘So what now?’ he asked.

  ‘We kill.’

  ‘It ends.’

  ‘Conflict.’

  ‘Tell me,’ the voice, fever-hot whispered. ‘How far has killing gotten you?’

  ‘Do not listen,’ another, bone-cold, protested.

  ‘All fighting ends eventually.’ Fire-hot. ‘And by the end, what have you got but a heap of corpses? No one left to speak to, to lay your head upon, and it grows so heavy …’

  ‘Trickery. Lies.’ Snow-cold. ‘We have survived before. We survive, always.’

  ‘You’ve been killing for so long, fighting for so long. Even when you had the option to leave, you turned to fighting, and this is where it has brought you: alone, abandoned but for voices in your head. It’s time to listen to reason. It’s time to give up. It’s over.’

  An inferno.

  ‘Ignore. Do not listen. Survive.’

  A mild chill.

  His hands fell to his side, sword from his hands, clattering to the drowning deck. The air turned to iron in his lungs, forced him to his knees. The water was not as cold as he expected, rising up around him and embracing him, a thousand tiny, lapping little hands, welcoming him into their fold, assuring him that they would never abandon him.

  ‘Rest now. Your wounds are great. Your head is heavy. You’ve done enough.’

  A blanket of shadow, warm and comforting, fell over him, bidding his eyes close, bidding him to ignore the pain in his shoulder. He felt numb of his own volition, burrowing into his own body, leaving the rest of him senseless to a pair of massive hands being laid gently upon his shoulder.

  ‘You’ve fought so hard and for nothing. Let this be the end.’

  He felt the fingers on his face, but could not feel the cold of the palms that pressed against either side of his head. The water was up to his waist now, the shadow engulfing him completely. Soon it would be over. Soon it would end.

  And there would be no more pain.

  ‘NOT OUR TIME.’

  Blood cold, brain frozen, muscles spasmed. His sword came to his hand, arm flew from his shoulder, found flesh and bit deeply. The screams were a disharmonic chorus, ringing from within and without a head that boiled and a body that froze.

  He leapt to his feet, turned around.

  And they were everywhere.

  Bone-white hands, grasping railings and hauling up glistening hairless bodies onto the deck. Rivers of flesh pouring out from the companionway, glistening black eyes wide and needle-filled mouths gasping. Boiling out of the ship’s wounds, knotted clots of skin and teeth on salty, dark blood.

  And among the frogmen, their masters walked. Three of the Abysmyths dominated the rapidly sinking deck, striding over their charges on skeletal black legs, pulling their emaciated bodies through the splintered wood. And before him, a great ebon tree leaking sap, the demon clutched the wound at its flank that Lenk’s sword had carved. Its vast, empty eyes strove to convey agony, just as its reaching, webbed claw strove to find Lenk’s throat.

  ‘Mother give me patience for the weak of heart,’ it croaked through a drowning voice. ‘I do what they cannot, through Your will.’

  ‘SURVIVE.’

  Advice or command, it was all that the voice told him, and it was all he needed.

  The webbed claw grasped the air where his head had been as he darted low and swung his sword up, driving it into the creature’s spear-thin midsection. It ate a messy feast, ichor dribbling from its metal maw and chewing through ribs as the blade and its wielder ignored the screams of the dying.

  And yet, Lenk’s brain was set ablaze with another wailing scream.

  ‘STOP IT!’

  As fer
vent and fiery as the command was, Lenk fought against it. When the voice’s words were not obeyed, it lashed out, searing his brain and boiling the blood in his temples. He staggered, rather than darted away, from the towering demon as it collapsed to its massive knees and then landed face-first in the water.

  A wall of pale white flesh greeted him, broken only by the four wide white eyes that stared at him from above. The frogmen pressed toward him, feral hisses slithering from their gaping, needle-lined mouths, webbed glistening hands outreached. The Abysmyths towering over them picked their way carefully towards him, gurgling in the voices of men long claimed by the sea.

  ‘Absolution in submission,’ one of them croaked. ‘Atonement in acceptance.’

  ‘Mercy at the Shepherd’s crook,’ the other one said. ‘You cannot continue like this, lamb, wallowing in despair and in doubt.’

  ‘Mother bids us,’ the frogmen echoed in twisted, echoing harmony. ‘The Prophet commands us. All for you.’

  They reached for him with free hands, clenched bone knives in the other. The Abysmyths’ jaws gaped, webbed claws open as if to invite him to get in. He saw his death reflected in every black, glossy stare and his life vanishing down every gaping gullet.

  And, with no other plan, he heard the voice that spoke on freezing tongues.

  ‘Kill.’

  And he obeyed.

  He lunged forward, swinging the blade as he did. It gorged itself, cleaving through rubbery white flesh and spilling fluids into the water indiscriminately. Those frogmen that fell he used as stepping stones across the drowning deck, cleaving into more and more still as he made his way towards the railing, ignoring the fever-hot voice screeching at him.

  ‘PLEASE! THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING! SPARE THEM!’

  They knotted at the railing, preventing him from hurling himself over before he could reach it. He didn’t care; there would be more of them under the water, anyway, in their element. His target was closer, taller and decidedly darker.

  The Abysmyth reached for him, its four-jointed arm extending to snatch him from the deck in an ooze-covered claw. He ducked low beneath it, wrapped his arm about it and lashed out with his sword, gnashing at the creature’s shoulder. Its arm flailed with a shriek, pulling him up and over its skeletal body.