by Erme Lander
The familiar alleyway, the half blocked door. The beam flicking around the room with her unsteady walk. He stumbled over the dry body causing more dust to puff up. Nearly too late with clearing her mouth, she sucked her breath in with the gurgle that heralded a coughing fit. Daniel froze at the sight of the figure in the middle of the room.
Himself. He was going to die. The memories rose, the shame of the anger, the wanting to hurt and feed and the sick pleasure of killing. A whimper choked out of him, was he doomed to repeat this over and over again? The figure raised its hands and Talia’s came up to meet them.
“No!” Daniel threw himself forwards and grabbed her hands to stop them. Might as well stop a boulder falling. Their hands met with Talia’s in the middle. A soundless explosion, his ears popped. He was pushed away hard and the world went black.
Chapter 20
The golden light, the warmth and the desire that makes me reach for it. A familiar shape in front of me, I raise my hands and the small part of me remaining, recognises Talia in the greyness. I fight to free myself and find I’m held in place, unable to stop. A silent scream breaks from my lips as the rest of me smiles in anticipation. The thought surfaces, the power residing in the slender figure is finally mine. Stronger than any other left, it is within reach, I will survive. Another figure is behind her, I ignore it, they are not important.
I stretch out trembling arms to touch the vessel’s hands, waiting for the swelling to begin, the sweet amber of power. I twist inside fighting impotently, it’s Talia – I don’t want to kill her! The remains of what was once mine, what had once held me captive has been brought before me at last. My hands warm and I ready myself to take everything she has.
The shock wave slams through me, disturbing the very structure of my being. Cracks run down the fibres holding me to this worthless container. I am being pulled away from my chance of life, the being shrieks silently and I shriek with it. This shouldn’t be happening, what could be destroying the ties holding me together? A tiny part of me laughs through the pain at the being’s consternation and takes over the body.
The pull intensifies, dragging us away. The being coils and fights back with the last of its strength, desperate to escape. I catch the thought that the other figure would be a far more suitable container and he’s touching me. They are the one and same, I can take over this new body and live to steal back the vessel’s power. A tiny tendril reaches out and the rest tries to follow, like sand pouring out of a bottle. My will strengthens, I mustn’t let it go to another person, even if it means keeping it inside me. My hand closes on a familiar cylinder and clings in my efforts to concentrate, cracking the housing. I hold onto it, refusing to let go. Weakened and denied the chance to escape into another body, it releases us both to be pushed through the latest opening and uses the explosion between us as kickback to send us both somewhere else.
The familiar sensation of nothing. I twist, caught in the void. The edges enclose me like rubber, and I swear at my inability to move. A wail deeps inside, it can’t cope with the void! Energy drains from it like a leaky bucket. The injured being curls up and nurses its wounds, broken. It knots itself into a kernel, hiding deep within me. Shocked by the sudden disappearance of its control, I try to inhale and nearly choke.
A determination fills me. I’m going to find a way through, I’ll beat it and remain in control, stop it from taking over again. With the last of my strength I push where the lines are weakest. A glimmer or is it lack of oxygen playing tricks? I’m not going to give up. A brush of air against my fingertips and the void peels away and spits me into the street.
I stumble against the wall, gasping for breath. Dust pours from my skin and clothes. Where am I? Darkness surrounds me but the familiar darkness of night and a light shines against the wall. My eyes feast hungrily, it’s real light, not the grey haze I’d known for what felt like centuries. My hand opens and I hear the clatter of something hit the ground, the light flicking out. My brain fumbles for the word. Torch. I reach for it and the darkness reaches back to swallow me up.
A spoon hovers at my lips and I taste a thin lentil soup. A voice says, “You’ve got a brand on you, but I don’t recognise it. Done recently too. What’s your name lad?”
I swallow with difficulty and the spoon pauses to let me speak. My brain whirs slowly, surfacing from under the cool waters of unconsciousness. “Dan.”
“Hmm, and what were you doing in the streets Dan?” My eyes focus on the woman feeding me. She must be ten years older than me, looks more. Her robes cover a large boned figure and yet nothing is soft about her.
“I can’t remember.”
“Escaping someone?” The spoon dips and comes close, touching my lips, I open my mouth obediently. “The brand on your back suggests you might be.” Escaping. Figures in a dark room flash before my eyes, seeing my face in front of me, mirroring my confusion then blackness covering everything. My own face must be showing my bewilderment. “Sleep now. It’s the best healer.”
“Who?” I manage to ask before my eyes begin to close.
“The name’s Dodie. That means you’re lucky. Most people finding you in the gutter would have stripped you for what you had and finished you off.” She smiles, confident in her power. “I take my payment in loyalty, lad. You’ve the look of the ones up top. I’ll get my price in my own time, when I decide.”
Too tired to protest, I sleep. It brings the dreams of previous lives not my own, of being trapped underground in the stinking darkness. The centuries bringing boiling marshes and a warm shallow sea to cover my shattered grave. Half in the void, half in the corporal world, I fume, unable to extract my revenge.
Men with pickaxes arrive. Digging for riches, they break into my cage and the power holding me explodes outwards. I stay for years in the wreckage of my tomb, a shadow of my former self, incapable of raising more than a dust man. These aren’t the smooth stone assassins I once controlled, feared by the strongest of warriors. These are wretched clumsy shadows defeated by the smallest pool of water. I sense the trackways opened by those who stole my strength and discover I can send my grey shadows down them. A touch from one retrieves my power and brings me life while taking theirs. Realising they are concentrated around the former mountain chain, a mile out from my lair, I plot my revenge.
Eventually when I have grown strong enough, I drag myself through a trackway, a singular achievement that I am never strong enough to replicate. The void hates me, dragging everything from me. The ground collapses catastrophically with my moving and the mountain I end up on, is surrounded by water. I am contained on an island, trapped again. Weak and helpless I fume in the cellar, frightened of the weaklings I once ruled. The water frustrates me, the one medium that can contain me, the haze blinding my eyes. The trackways diminish through the years and I become weaker, unable to to send my shadows down them at will, unlike in the early days. So many died in the tsunami following my relocation. I have no pity for the people, just anger at the loss of what they contained. I can see those who stole from me as they blink out one by one over the years, becoming weaker through the generations. A few still blaze, I stalk them through the long nights.
I wake briefly, sweating and turn over to forget the dream, like I’d forgotten everything else. Visions of my former life rose to be swallowed in the grey haze, nightmares of being trapped in a cellar, unable to move in the dark made me cry out at night. Watching people crumble in front of my eyes and the warm jolt of power feeding me. The other dreams were worst, dreams of green trees and the falling white blossom not found here. A familiar silver moon, alien to this world and a small child playing.
Dodie visits, asking questions under the pretence of feeding me. I tell her nothing of my dreams, squirming under the shrewd gaze. She seems convinced she knows where I am from and I’m content to let her. The more mundane tasks to help my recovery, she leaves to others. I take several days to get out of bed, more to begin walking without becoming dizzy. I refuse to sleep in the dark,
spending the small hours staring into the button lamp Dodie allows me, flipping the torch over and over in my hands. Dodie had given it back to me as a curiosity, it no longer works. I handle it like a talisman, part of a past I can’t remember.
The unease grows as I become stronger, cutting through my passive state. I resist it for as long as I can but it remains an itch I’m unable to scratch. About a week after I’d got out of bed, I begin to roam the streets, searching for something I can’t remember. I have periods of greyness falling in front of my eyes, and I’d not know where I’d been. The cold affects me and I have a desperate need not to be noticed in my different clothes. I keep a blanket wrapped around me, hiding from the shadows set to watch me by Dodie.
One night, having wandered for most of it in a haze, I feel a break and something squeeze through. A pop as it shuts. I stop and turn in the direction it had come from, my mouth open. Something stirs inside – the call of golden light – warmth. Without thinking, I start to run, ignoring the shout from my shadow behind me.
I lose the direction and stop feeling bereft in a way I can’t articulate and feel another pop. More warmth, I begin to run faster, ducking down alleys, the weakness falling away as I lose Dodie’s sneak. This is important, I must be alone. Memories flicker, distracting me, I push them aside in the effort to stop tripping over rubble. I can feel the greyness beginning to descend. I know I’m getting closer when another breakthrough happens. I know this thrill, I need to touch it, feel it, I need to… The warmth separates into different directions, which do I follow? The larger group is nearer, I decide to head for it.
I keep running until I reach the end of an alleyway and see three people outlined by the pre-dawn and the lights outside the building. I’m opposite Dodie’s place, I run my fingers over the torch I still have in my pocket, my talisman. My eyes sharpen to peer, a child is held in a man’s arms. She is important, I want her. I wipe my mouth, a touch should do it. I try to grasp the edges of a thought – what was it I wanted from the child? Hunger pulls at the tendrils of a seed inside, this is something I need.
One of the group, a small familiar figure, has disappeared through Dodie’s door and I wonder if I can snatch the child. The door slams open and I instinctively flick my hood over my face – I don’t want Dodie to know I’m here. A short conversation and the child is handed over. More men are coming out after Dodie, I need to move, I can get the child later. I know the men will deal with the adults, despite my self imposed isolation, I have heard of Dodie’s methods. I will have no chance to get at the smaller of the two.
I stretch my mind to feel for the last bubble. It’s moving away, I turn and begin to run after it. A grey haze descends over my eyes, filtering out the light. Chills shiver through me, I pull my hood down further and wrap my blanket tighter. Paranoia, I mustn’t be recognised, people are starting to wake for the working day. I visual where that last bubble must be heading, I twist through the alleyways to cut it off, panting as I run. I stop, waiting. A grey figure turns the corner and heads down the alley towards me. I’ve done it!
The grey figure is small and I frown. This isn’t right, it should be taller, a mirror of myself. Cracks appear as it walks, golden light spilling out in to the dark street and seeing them, I no longer care. My knees are weak in anticipation and I reach out to grasp a shoulder. One touch should do it. The words appear in my mind, saliva drools down my chin, unnoticed.
I try to touch it and it slips away, breaking into a run. The thought stuns me, it can’t do this, I am its master. I trip over a brick, no longer agile and forget to break my fall. I recoil from the puddle I’ve landed in and lever myself up to stumble after it. Through the streets I give chase, no longer caring if I’m seen. The grey light fogs my brain and an endless hunger begs. I forget the other figures, the other bubbles. This grey man should be mine.
A siren call in the distance, a smell of a memory. I follow it and the streets become familiar although I can’t remember walking them. I miss the feeling of a hand in mine and a mocking tone teasing me. I don’t know where I’m walking to and yet my feet lead me without hesitation. Something uncoils within me and a waking dream fills my brain, the grey light expanding into a view of a cellar. My feet continue to walk, I’m like one of the grey men, unable to control my own limbs. I am the dead.
The slender grey figure stand before me in my mind’s eye, it’s a woman. She reminds me of someone. The name rises from the depths and her face flickers in front of my eyes for the first time in days. I come awake as though drenched in cold water. It’s Talia, she’s been taken. Despair fills me, I’ve failed. The golden light breaking through her skin doesn’t light the room, it’s as though it’s only visible to my eyes. My mouth opens to croak her name and I see something move.
A hand, it reaches out as though it’s my own and the figure kneels. We embrace and the golden light is sucked out. I groan at the feeding, from where I am it is an empty recollection of the satiation I should feel. Talia slowly disintegrates, leaving my hopes in the pile of dust with her. Hunger and its rage flash through me at being in this state and I feel the other part of me raise a hand to summon me.
I wake out the dream as I come to the expected opening. I clamber in and automatically try to switch the torch on. Nothing, I throw it onto the ground in disgust. It’s only habit, I can see through the grey fine. A dead silence surrounds me, a presence and a slow horror rises. The memories tug, demanding my attention and dazed, I let them. I know who I am, I am Daniel. Talia is dead, taken by the being in this cellar. Hope dies inside me, I can never go home and I will never see my family again. I see the apple blossom falling in the orchard and Biggles’ face turning to look at me and I can’t even cry. The realisation empties me into a hollow shell.
I am an automation, the thing inside tugs me forwards. A being made of rags and bone crouches, its skin hanging off in flaps waiting for me. Even I can see it’s not going to survive in that form, even with the power it’s received from Talia, it’s dying. The seed inside me responds, pulling my resisting legs towards it. It needs me, needs my body. I have nothing left inside, I am the walking dead.
Bulging eyes fix, a touch of its hands and it pours itself into me. The seed winding through me welcomes it. I want to vomit the sensation out and I can’t. I am no longer in control of my body. I feel it’s contempt. I am weak but more useful than the dying body it used to inhabit. The old body crumbles into the dust on the floor and my knees give way.
It sweeps through me, confident in its victory and a tiny spark of rebellion starts. I can’t win, I know I have no escape and I’m going to kill myself in this cellar in years to come but maybe I can change something. I cling to a portion of myself, I can’t allow myself to be lost otherwise I might as well be dead. I lost myself in a matter of days last time, this time I’ve got to last years. Talia will come for me, I have to trust in her. I make the terrible decision that I’m going to have to let it have my body in order to keep a small part of myself intact.
With the being’s lust rising through me, I feel terribly alone. Power. Hunger. I feel a break happening and my hands raise to build a grey man in my new form. I will feed and grow. The semblance comes alive and walks out of the cellar to hunt, hood over it’s face, blanket over it’s shoulders like a cloak. I smile. Lord of Dust… I sit on the floor and play with it, swirling it through my fingers.
Chapter 21
Talia was on her hands and knees on the cellar floor, coughing her lungs out. The nightmare of not being in control of her limbs had ceased. Shivers ran over her skin, dislodging fine puffs of dust into the air. Tears and snot dripped as she retched, grey with the dirt that had covered her. Her thoughts were equally monochrome. The riot, the grey man taking her and the figure of her friend in the cellar, waiting to take her. She had survived somehow but Daniel had succumbed instead. He’d changed again and it was all her fault.
Eventually she sat back, wiping her sleeve across her face and stared into the dimness. The lig
ht barely penetrated the second room, all she could see were vague shapes. Talia slowly pulled herself upright and stood panting. She wiped the rest of the dust off the best she could and felt her lungs ache from coughing.
The pile of dust with Daniel in the middle stirred. She should get out, get away. The thoughts ran through her mind – she was too tired, she didn’t want to run, where was the point? The pile rose, this time as a complete figure. It must be strong and she had no way to stop it.
Coated in dust the figure turned and smiled. “Talia.” She stood, frozen in grief. A hand reached out to take hers and she waited passively for something to happen, for the dust to sweep over her and the nightmare to begin again. Her wrist was shaken gently. “Talia, it’s me. I’m fine. It’s gone.”
For once she had no smart answer. He shook his shoulders off in a shower and wrapped his arms around her. They were solid and reassuring. She turned her head sideways so not to breathe in any more dust and could hear the steady thud of his heart. Her Daniel was alright. Talia found herself shaking into his shoulder, nothing left inside for tears. She squeezed her eyes tight and pulled away, smearing her face even more as she rubbed her hands over it. “What happened?”
“Do you remember we were in the wall? After Bay had succeeded in getting everyone inside?” She nodded. “That grey man you summoned was still in the building. I thought I’d got it but I was too late...I was trying to keep the dust away from your mouth… It was the only thing I could think of… I couldn’t stop you walking…” he trailed off.
“I couldn’t stop me,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry.”
She tried to feel contempt for the way his eyes filled with tears and failed. “I could feel your hands keeping me alive.” His arms came round her again. He rubbed her back, using the movement to reassure himself as much as her.
