The Verse of Sibilant Shadows: A set of tales from the Irrational Worlds

by JM Guillen

  Still, it was difficult to actually go anywhere. There were a few of them that kept lurking around the edges of our apartment building. They didn’t particularly seem to be after us; they simply stood still, swaying as if they were listening to some sweet lullaby of the damned. But that was enough to keep us inside.

  Days passed, and we thought they would never go away, but they did.

  When they did, Mark said it was time to make a run. He knew where there was— should have been at least— a freezer full of food, at the Alpha Phi basement. The Event happened just as they were gearing up for a barbeque, and Mark wanted to scope it before the brownouts progressed to blackouts, and the freezer was gone.

  We used the fire escape, leaving a belt tied to it so we could pull it back down.

  It was an easy run to the car. I had no idea where Elsie might have gone to get a car, but she had. Once we got to it, I was afraid it wouldn’t start. The entire world was adrift; how long before cars didn’t work?

  “Faith.” Mark said, and Elsie agreed.

  I only had faith in the Equation. If there was a God, he had abandoned his children.

  The key turned, and the car began a reluctant sputter for a moment. We looked at each other nervously.

  Then, it started. Moments later we were peeling away, Elsie driving.

  Kenny was in the yard at Alpha Phi. The moment I saw him, my heart fell out of my chest.

  Oh, oh no.

  The Tainted had claimed Kenny.

  He was swaying in the wind and didn’t even focus on us. No one knows what they are doing when they sway like that. It’s like they are listening to something we can’t hear.

  When I saw him, I could hardly breathe. I was trembling, and the world shook.

  Kenny, who would share his Camels with an easy smile. Kenny, who had once sung me to sleep when I was too drunk to walk. Kenny, who named his guitar “the Waraxe.”

  Kenny, who was grinning far too widely and chewing through his lower lip, blood covering his t-shirt. Kenny, who had obviously pissed and shit in the same jeans he had been wearing the night of the Event.

  In a distracted, dreamy kind of way, Kenny looked at us. He stood squarely between us and the frat house.

  “Mark?” Elsie’s voice was tinged with worry. “Do you think we should?”

  “We didn’t come out here to go home empty.” Mark was moving as soon as Elsie stopped the car.

  Almost as if awakening from a dream, Kenny gained focus. His eyes grew clear as Mark placed the first two bullets in the middle of his chest.

  Kenny did not stop.

  He roared, screamed like I imagined no human could. The sound was a despairing wail.

  I realized that, altogether unconsciously, I was tracing some of the symbols with my fingers.

  Sind HEart-eATer… JIsSC wHOse ORIFices BLeed InSAnity… Snyckild The WInd In wINtEr… SwOdaid The BElchEr Of FIlth…

  That was the moment that realization hit me square in the face. The Wormwood Event, the Aberrations, even the small bends in reality, they were all part of the same thing. The Equation was incomplete. Something was missing, or wrong, or performed improperly.

  I could feel it like a snag in space or perhaps a tear in time.

  September 18, 2015 had not been just like any other, regular day. There had been nothing regular about it. No, that day was extraordinary, like April 20, 2010, when all that oil spilled and sacrificial fires burned over the water. In my deepest heart, I knew that September 18, 2015 had been like September 11, 2001, or like the day the Challenger exploded, or the day Kennedy was sacrificed to secret names that none dared speak.

  Something was supposed to be different on days like that. Somewhere, on September 18th, the proper rituals had not been kept.

  Without the sacrifices, without ritualistic agony and blood being spilled, our world had no future.

  Now Kenny sprinted toward Mark, even with two holes in his chest. Mark was backpedaling and falling over himself in the street. As Kenny stepped off the lawn, Elsie slammed on the gas, heading straight for him.

  The impact threw Kenny twenty-five feet. The landing was wet. It cracked.

  Kenny looked up, however. Eyes that were once December blue looked at me, through me.

  His gaze blossomed in my mind. All of history, everything that mankind had ever learned, poured through me like a geyser of molten silver.

  I screamed.

  Time cannibalized space, bit to the quick.

  Gasping. No air.

  For a moment, the Formula gave way. The names lost meaning. My finger stopped tracing imaginary shapes. Suddenly—

  They were all the same thing.

  “The same thing!” I think I screamed the words.

  I could feel the Tainted for just a moment. Feel the sunlight on their skin. Feel a few of them drag in ragged, rattling breaths, looking at us through a window. There was a unity, a twisted harmony that was primal, sexual. I gasped as it tore through me. It took me a moment to realize what it meant.

  There were more.

  Seven in the Alpha Phi house and three more across the street, they were connected; they were one.

  It was beautiful. Skin being pulled away to the red.

  Suddenly, my mind wrenched away from them. I think I screamed. The flow of names, like a fast river, careened through my mind again: CrUrdLler the EATer of STars… ThYMrrAk the DOuSeR… IDAm the ShatteRed… STRuyWar the MiNDSless HOwler… PeTIin the CRusader of DEath…SnAstLLkAl WHo is PRegnant WIth DiscORd… SYRr the UNrepENtAnt… SichVes THe RApine… Jeit WHose PLEasuRe COmEs fROM the DEAd…

  I think I sobbed. I think I begged for that feeling, that sweet unity to come back.

  It was love. It was more than love. The last time I had felt so loved…

  No. Kenny Curbeau was dead. December blue faded from the world.

  “Go, Go, GO!!!” Mark was running back to the car. He shot twice more as Tainted poured out of the frat house. Elsie slammed on the gas again. I watched behind us as the body that Kenny once inhabited shuffled to its feet. Its head was canted to the side, and it could barely walk. Still, inevitable and inexorable, it stood up, the blue faded from its eyes only to be replaced by blackness.

  Kenny the Tainted was gone. All that was left was his shambling corpse. THIS was what was left, an Aberration. We could still kill the human, the vestige that remained. This, however, was the shroud, the darkness that inhabited him.

  We could kill the man, but this…

  They chased us. Elsie slammed her foot down. The Tainted seemed so fast, so intense. They left Kenny’s corpse shambling along as they ran, screaming and whooping as they came. Mark took aim over my head and shot as we drove. One went down, but then it was running again even with its kneecap blown out.

  Even after we lost sight of them, I could still imagine them running.

  I could imagine them never stopping.

  My head throbbed in burning agony, and every light had tracers in it. I was muttering something, words that I would never remember later.

  “What?” Mark gave me an odd look.

  “Nothing,” I gave him a wan smile. “I knew a couple of those guys. That’s all.”

  “Not anymore you don’t.” He spat out the window. “There’s nothing left inside that’s worth knowin’.”

  I couldn’t help but think that, for a brief moment, I had known a kind of intimacy with the Tainted that went far beyond anything I had ever had with Mark or Elsie. It had been deliriously wonderful. It was a kind of pleasure I had never had from the touch of any other human.

  What had Kenny done?

  December blue.

  7

  The night after Kenny, I dreamed that I went to the campus, needing to get some new books. I saw several people I knew, but they treated me differently, acted as if I were strange. Peter wouldn’t even look at me; Myra was crying and would not stop. The people scurried around, like on film that had been slightly sped up. When I tried to speak to them, they would igno
re me.

  I was finally leaving, thinking that I could buy nothing there, when I met a woman who I somehow knew was new in town. She seemed strange, traveling alone with a small wagon being led by a dead pony.

  She smiled at me and asked what lay in the village ahead. It didn’t occur to me that this was a “campus” and not a “village.” I muttered some non-committal reply and turned to leave, but something seemed to hold me fast. My ears rang, loudly, a chime that was painful to hear. For some reason, I found myself entranced, fixed upon her eyes, staring at me in innocent, December blue.

  Eyes that cried blood.

  The tears ran down her pale face, leaving crimson streaks in their wake, as she pointed at me and screamed, screamed so loudly I remember thinking that Christ must hear her. She screamed the same five words, over and over.

  “ifn om pet Tomn TAK!”

  She rent her face with her own nails, clawed at her skin as if she itched madly, as if something burrowed underneath her skin.

  The world began to swim, and I fell to my knees. Unholy, unreasonable terror stabbed through me like a shard of ice in my heart. I felt wet warmth in my crotch as I lost all control of myself. She came toward me, slow and yet so, so fast, jerking like some kind of marionette.

  Blood dripped from her mouth.

  I knew she was Ravenous. I knew she had eaten Kenny. Eaten and fucked him, fuckedhimwith Talons and Emptiness.

  MarkandElsie.

  I somehow found strength, the mad, wild strength that only an animal knows, and sprinted to the apartment building, running as fast as I could. All along the road, a strange symbol had been carved into the trees, a symbol that burned with an unholy fire. I can still see its outline upon my eyes.

  I remembered it so well when I awoke that I was able to draw it exactly. I hadn’t ever seen it before or found it anywhere in the great Work.

  It belongs somewhere. The thought was alien, external. Yet it seemed so logical.

  It’s the Prime Variable.

  I woke up feeling as if I was so close to figuring out what I needed to do. What if there was some small thing, anything, that someone could do that would fix all this?

  The night after the symbol, I slept like I hadn’t slept in weeks. I was dead to the world. As a result, I had no idea why I woke up when I did.

  I couldn’t hear them, but my eyes just snapped open, and I was awake.

  Faint light filtered into my room, which was strange. We were deep into electricity rationing by then, and Mark was very strict about it. I couldn’t believe they forgot. I stumbled from my room, sleep still in my eyes.

  That’s when I heard them.

  I heard it a long time before I saw it. It sounded like animals rutting. No words. Steady, wild, ravenous thumping. Elsie was growling like a wild beast.

  Instantly, for reasons I still don’t understand, I was furious.

  It was the end of the world, and I had to be alone. I knew Mark and I would never be a thing, but that wasn’t the issue. Elsie was SO stupid. He didn’t want her either.

  It’s the apocalypse, and Elsie gets the guy.

  They hid it from me. Like I was a child.

  I didn’t care how they felt about it. I was SO angry. The light coming in from his room was yellowish as it crept down the hall. I didn’t even look in the crack, I just slammed the door in, and prepared to give them an earful.

  Mark didn’t stop.

  His head twitched like a puppet. As if something dragged at his face, his head pulled around toward me. His gaze was wide, but his eyes were empty.

  They were filled with black.

  “The Variable is still in play.” The words echoed like we were in a deep well. “Unless the process is balanced, cascading collapse is imminent.” His body never stopped moving under the blankets. Powerful. Serpentine.

  I saw her hands on his back. Then, her voice, sounding like a scratched record.

  “Diego left you the true Libram. You have to resolve the Prime Variable.” She was gouging his back— not in a sexy way either. Rivulets of blood and water ran from his skin.

  The world was living entropy. Everything seemed to be rotting, falling apart. I watched in horror, and my mind seemed adrift.

  I was screaming, somewhere. But that place wasn’t here. I could hear myself. Everyone who had ever lived could hear me.

  It was dark then. Darkness shattered by bursts of December blue.

  Dizzy, nails in my head, I was in my room on the floor. The light was off.

  They were toying with me. Fuck. They had thrown me back into my room so they could bang some more. Bastards. Assholes. Mark knew about the Work. All those times he had teased me, and the asshole KNEW.

  I ran down the hall and into the living room, slamming my shin into the coffee table. Screaming, I knocked it end-over-end, and it hit the floor.

  “What the hell was that?” Mark’s voice from his room. The hall light came on.

  I snarled; I breathed brimstone. Like he cared. I was amazed he had stopped banging her long enough to come and see what was wrong.

  I remember seeing his gun, lying on the floor. It had been on the table.

  I grabbed it and ran. Mark was walking down the hallway. I knew he would stop me. I scooped up the papers, grabbed my purse.

  His gun went in my purse.

  I was out the door before he entered the main room. Fuck this. Fuck THEM. It was some kind of game they were playing. I didn’t know what I had seen, and I didn’t want to.

  Why had Mark known about the Work? Why hadn’t he helped me figure it out?

  No time. No time.

  Unconsciously, my fingers were twitching, carving patterns in the air. TriCRa thE LIon Of The PIt… SWEn tHe INefFAble…STriYOs tHe SCyThe… Digh the WEepiNg oNe…

  I knew that the names would keep me safe.

  I stepped from the alleyway into the street.

  I still have no idea how Mark got outside so quickly

  “Grace?” Mark’s voice was almost timid, as if afraid. He sounded like he was trying to calm a wild animal. “What are you doing, hon?”

  “I’m going to figure it out.” My voice trembled with fury. I reached into my purse and pulled out his gun. I pointed squarely at him. “You hid it from me. You bastard.”

  “What?” His hands went up. “I don’t know what you mean. Come back upstairs. You’re frightening us.”

  “I’m not frightened of what they did, whoever they were.” I was practically crying. “I’m more terrified of what happens if they don’t finish the Equation.” I rambled as the gun trembled in my hand. “I’ve seen the sideways world, Mark.”

  “Grace.” He glanced around, and I realized that he thought some of the Tainted must be near. He thought they were affecting me somehow.

  Maybe they were. Just not like he thought.

  He doesn’t think I’m making sense. The thought enraged me.

  “I know them now, Mark. I dream their names, shattered across the unsetting sun.” The words made perfect sense in my mind, but I saw his eyes grow wide in an odd kind of fear. I continued, rambling faster.

  “It was the first step. I understand why too. The names are the guardians, standing at the edge of the undreamt. They are guarding me from the unfinished Equation’s dire effects.” A thought occurred to me. “Is that why the Work was sent? So I would chronicle what happened as the world slipped away?”

  “Grace, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stepped forward, reaching his hand toward me. “I need you to give me the gun.”

  “I won’t.” I didn’t know why, but the truth seemed apparent. There were two roads here, and if I gave him the gun, I would end up back in that apartment, alone, while they banged each other and laughed at me.

  I, and the world, deserved another way. Another chance. Things stood on the edge of a vast and relentless cliff.

  Without thought or remorse, I shot him in the face.

  The sound was like thunder echoing from the edge of creati
on, and the entire world seemed to spin around us. In some secret place behind my mind, it felt as if the world sighed with relief.

  I heard Elsie scream from somewhere above me. When I looked up the apartment building, however, I did not see her. I waited for a long moment, wondering if she would appear.

  She did not.

  I turned and walked, alone and unafraid, into the night.

  I must’ve been over a block away when I stopped in front of a small storefront. Of course, it was dark inside, but my reflection was simple to see in the bright moonlight.

  The image was wan, and my hair was tangled. My eyes, however, shone with certainty, resolute knowledge.

  Once, in the world that was, I was a silly college girl. My family came from Mexico, and like all of them, I had spice-dark skin, midnight hair, and chocolate eyes.

  Once.

  Now, my eyes burned December Blue. The Prime Variable sang in my heart, brilliant like the unsetting sun.

  “Things are going to change.” I smiled at the reflection, a grim, fierce smile.

  I turned away from the window, and I walked into the future.

  ###

  Notes on the work

  Yes. Our Tainted are the same as the shaedr-ghůl (Hey, look, the syllable “shae.”) in Ysabel’s world. Therefore, on a timeline, while Ysabel’s folk are thick in the fight against the Shroud, it has only begun on Rational Earth.

  If one needs further proof that it’s the same apocalypse, one might look to a quote from Slave of the Sky-Captain.

  I know that when the Shroud first came, Aeldred the Drae grasped the silver flame and led the ancient Du’ainn from the Einholt after it fell. I know of the red star in the sky, and how the bearers of the silver flame crafted the bounds.

  From this story we learn how vast the Paean is. If one were to look at the timeline:

  Rationality Zero—June 21, 1998

  The Herald of Autumn—September 23, 2002

  The Wormwood Event—September 1, 2015

  Since the next book in Bishop’s series The Dossiers of Asset 108 is dated August 1, 1998, we have a long way to go before the Wormwood Event.