Black Halo

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 take 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.

And that was when everything went wrong.

Like any man who had the right to call himself scum, Denaos was religious by necessity. He was an ardent follower of Silf, the Severer of Nooses, the Sermon in Shadows, the Patron. Denaos, like all of His followers, lived and died by the flip of His coin. And being a God of fortune, Silf’s omens were as much a surprise to Him as to His followers. Any man who had a right to call himself one of the faithful would be canny enough to recognise those omens when they came.

Denaos, being a reasonable and religious man, had.

And he had acted, running the moment her back was turned, never stopping until the forest had given way to a sheer stone wall, too finely carved to be natural. He hadn’t cared about that; he followed it as it stretched down a long shore, where it crumbled in places to allow the lonely whistle wind through its cracks.

Perhaps, he wondered, it would lead to some form of civilisation. Perhaps there were people on this island. And if they had the intellect needed to construct needlessly long walls, they would certainly have figured out how to carve boats. He could go to them then, Denaos resolved, tell them that he was shipwrecked and that he was the only survivor. He could barter his way off.

But with what?

He glanced down at the bottle of liquor, its fine, clear amber swirling about inside a very well-crafted, very expensive glass coffin. He smacked his lips a little.

Maybe they accept promises …

Or, he considered, maybe he would just die out here. That could work, too. He’d be devoured by dredgespiders, drown in a sudden tide, get hit on the head with a falling coconut and quietly bleed out of his skull, or just walk until starvation killed him.

All decent options, he thought, so long as he would never have to see her again.

‘Do you remember how we met?’ she had asked, staring at him.

He had nodded. He remembered it.

Theirs had been an encounter of mutual necessity: hers one of tradition, his one of practicality. She was beginning her pilgrimage, to spread her knowledge of medicine to those in need. He was looking to avoid parties interested in mutilating him. Their motives seemed complementary enough.

It wasn’t unheard-of for people with either problem to hang on to an adventuring party to get the job done. Though, it had to be said there were a fair bit more adventurers suffering his problem than hers.

They had met Lenk and the creatures he called companions: a hulking dragonman, a feral shict. They had looked strong, capable and in no shortage of wounds to inflict or mend, and so the man and the woman had left the city with them that same day. They had gone out the gate, trailing behind a man with blue eyes, a bipedal reptile and a she-wolf.

She had smiled nervously at him.

He had smiled back.

‘We met Dread not long after,’ she said. He had thought he could make out traces of nostalgia in her smile … or violent nausea. Either way, she was fighting it down. ‘And suddenly I was in the middle of a pack consisting of a wizard, a monster, a savage and Lenk. I wanted to run.’

So had he. He hadn’t been planning on staying with them longer than it took to escape the noose, let alone a year. But he had found something in the companions and their goals that, occasionally, helped people.

Opportunity, however minuscule, for redemption, however insignificant.

‘And I couldn’t help but think, through it all,’ she had sighed, looking up at the moon, ‘“Thank you, Talanas, for sending me another normal human.”’ Her frown was subtle, all the more painful for it. ‘Back when I had no idea who you were, you seemed to be the only familiar thing I could count on. We were the same, both from the cities, believed in the Gods, knew that, no matter what happened, we had each other to fall back on. So I stayed with them, no matter how much I wanted to run, because I thought you were …’

A sign, he had thought.

‘But you are what you are.’ She had looked up to him, something pitiful in her right eye, something desperate in her left. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘No,’ he had said.

‘What?’ she had asked.

‘Hot, hot, hot …’ Dreadaeleon had whispered.

And she had turned to the wizard.

And Denaos had dropped the torch and run.

It was a sloppy escape, he knew. She might come looking for him. He hoped she wouldn’t, what with him having threatened to cut her open, but there was always the possibility. He knew that the moment he had looked into her eyes and she had looked past his, into something deeper.

She had seen the face he showed her and realised it wasn’t his. And in her eyes, the quaver of her voice, he knew she would want to know. She would want to know … everything.

And he had worked too hard for her to know. Things had become sloppy even before he beat his retreat. She had heard him whisper over her. She had seen his face slip off. She had seen something in him that didn’t make her turn away.

He couldn’t have that.

Better for it to end this way, he thought as he rested against the wall and took a long, slow sip from the bottle. Better for her to never know anything. If he had stayed, she would keep pushing. If she kept pushing, he would eventually break. He would come to trust her.

And she … she would begin to relax around him, a man that no one should relax around. She would sigh with contentment instead of frustration. She would stop twitching when she heard him approach. She would give him coy smiles, demure giggles and all the things ladies weren’t supposed to give men like him.

She would come to trust him.

And you remember how that turned out last time, don’t you?

He blinked. Red and black flashed behind his eyelids. A woman lay beside him and smiled at him, twice: once with her lips, once through her throat.

He shook his head, pulled the bottle to his lips and drank deeply.

It was all very philosophically sound. It was better for her, he thought, that he leave. That was a lie, he knew, but it was a good lie, a sacred lie blessed by Silf. The Patron would be pleased at such a reasonable, philosophical man.

But philosophy, too, required honesty. And like any philosophical man without honesty, Denaos turned once more to drinking.

He was in a haze, but a pleasant one. The lies were making sense now. The logic was clear and, most importantly, he could close his eyes and see only darkness. The drink did that for him. It made everything quiet.

And everything was quiet. The mutter of the ocean was distant and faint. The sound of stone was earth-silent. The clouds moved across the moon without any fuss from the wind that gently hurried them along. Everything was quiet.

So quiet that he heard the whispers with painful clarity.

They began formlessly, babble rising over the grey stone without words. But as they hung over him, they coalesced, formed a spear that plunged into his head with a shriek. Accusations lanced his mind, condemnations tore at his brain, pleas punched a hole in his skull for so much hateful, violent screaming to pour. It was enough to make him drop his bottle and torch alike and fall to his knees.

His dagger was out and the whispering faded. His head pounded, his eyes sought to seal themselves shut. He strained to keep them open as he looked up and caught a glance at the far end of the wall.

And his blood went cold.

Slender fingers gripped the edge. Half a face peered from behind, locks of long and dark hair framing pale cheeks with a broad and horrifically unpleasant smile. An immense eye, round, white and knowing stared at him.

Into him.

‘No …’ he whispered.

And the woman said nothing in return.

The whispering came back, grazing his skull and forcing his hands over his ears and his eyes shut tight. They dissipated again and when he was again able to look, she was gone.

He rose, plucking the bottle and dagger up from the sand and sheathing both in his belt as he stared at the space where she had just been.

Hallucination, he told himself, or delusion or both, wrought by any number of causes, all sinful, of which you have no shortage. Paranoia, drink, sleeplessness. Reasonable, right?

He nodded to himself.

Whatever the cause, we can agree that … that wasn’t her.

It seemed reasonable.

Then why are we following it?

Because Denaos was a reasonable man, he told himself, a reasonable man with plenty of reasons for not wanting to see a woman who he knew was already dead and none of them convincing enough to turn him back.

He rounded the corner and the land changed in the blink of a bloodshot eye. Forest and shore were conquered by a sprawling courtyard: the stone wall was joined by many, crowding the trees above, smothering the sand below. The walls bore carvings, mosaics twisted in cloaked moonlight, of faces he did not recognise, gods that no one had names for.

Those same gods rose over him, massive statues challenging the moon as they towered over the courtyard. Their robes were stone, their right hands were extended, their faces had long crumbled away and been shattered upon a floor swathed with mist, tendrils of fog rising up to shake spitefully at the moon attempting to ruin its shroud. The stench of salt scraped his throat, seared his lungs. But he could not care for that now.

Not when she was standing there in the centre of the courtyard, staring at him.

It was the same gown she had worn when he saw her last, the simple flowing ivory, now the same colour as her skin, rendering her body and the garment indistinguishable. Her hair was the same, frazzled still, undoubtedly still thick with the scent of streets and people. But he couldn’t be sure it was her, not until he took a step closer.

Not until she smiled at him twice.

Once with her mouth.

‘Good morning, tall man,’ she said suddenly, her voice still thick and accented from a tongue that had no taste for lies.

He stared back at her, a silence thick as the death that seeped into the courtyard hanging between them. When he spoke, his words wilted in his mouth.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She said nothing.

‘There was no choice,’ he said, weakly. ‘I had no choice. There were … obligations, promises.’ He swallowed a mouthful of salt. ‘Threats.’

She simply smiled back.

‘But … I made a choice, anyway. I made it. What would you have done?’ His vision was hazy, but not with the fog. Tears were stinging his eyes, their salty stink worse than the ocean’s. ‘What was I supposed to do?’

No curses, no weeping, no wailing, no whispers. She simply stared. He stepped forward.

‘Please, just talk to me—’

His foot struck something soft. The sound echoed through a conspiracy of silence. He looked down. He blanched.

As though it possessed a particularly morbid sense of humour, the white blanket of mist parted to expose a face twisted in death. Black eyes glistening in a pale, bony face bereft of blood stared up at him, a mouth filled with needles open in a silent scream as wide as the wound in its hairless chest.

A frogman, he recognised, a servant of the horrific Abysmyths. It was dead. It was not alone. Other silhouettes, black against the mist, corpses gripping spears in their chest, clutching wounds in their bellies with webbed hands.

Beside them, their faces contorted in unquiet death, he could see the longfaces, the netherlings. Their purple skin was painted with crimson, their iron and armour stained and battered with the battle that had just raged between them and their pale, hairless foes.

Something about the scene of carnage was unsettling, even beyond the death and decay that permeated the mist. The netherlings were dead, but not from wounds that would have been delivered with the bone spears and knives that the frogmen clutched. The injuries were universal across the dead: each one large and jagged, having wept the last of their blood just hours ago. They had all been made by the same weapons.

And the frogmen hadn’t killed any of them.

Then, he narrowed his eyes, what would make the netherlings turn upon each other?

‘It is the way of the faithless to clean itself of its sins,’ a deep, gurgling voice spoke from nearby, ‘in blood.’

Denaos whirled, his dagger out. The Abysmyth stared back at him, down at him, from its seven-foot height. Its eyes were vast, white voids. Its mouth hung open in its dead fish head, breathing ragged breaths through jagged teeth. Its towering body, a skeleton wrapped in a skin of shadow, stood tall, four-jointed arms hanging down to its knobby knees.

But the arms did not reach. The legs did not advance. It stared, nothing more.

The massive wedge of metal that was jammed through its chest and which pinned it to the wall might have had something to do with that.

He glanced back to the courtyard. She was gone. He was alone.

Almost.

‘Before the Sermonic, the longfaces were confronted,’ the Abysmyth croaked. ‘Before the Sermonic, they beheld their own sins of faithlessness. She spoke to them in the dark places where they could not hide from her light. She spoke to them, she offered them salvation.’

The Abysmyth craned one of its massive arms up. A longface’s corpse hung from its webbed, black claw, a sheen of suffocating ooze coating a face smothered in its grasp.

‘You fought the netherlings, then,’ Denaos whispered. He glanced at the weapon jammed through its chest. ‘Doesn’t look like it ended well for you.’

‘The faithful can never find joy in the slaughter of lambs,’ the Abysmyth gurgled in reply. ‘Our solemn task was to follow the longfaces here, to blind their prying eyes, to silence their blasphemous questions.’

‘They were searching for something?’

‘It is the nature of the faithless to search. They crave answers from everything but She who gives them. In Mother Deep, there is salvation, child.’ It extended its other arm, far too long for Denaos’ comfort. ‘Approach me. My time ends, my service endures. I can save you. I can deliver you from your agonies.’

Denaos took a step back at the sight of the glistening, choking ooze dripping from its claws. He had seen men die from that ooze, drowned on dry land, committed to a watery grave while their feet still touched sand.

‘I already have a god,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘God? God?’ It roared. The wound in its chest sizzled with acidic green venom, the same sickly sheen that coated the blade. He had seen this, too, and what it did to the demons. ‘You have nothing! Your gods care not for you! They are deaf to your cries! They are deaf to your suffering. To my suffering.’

The creature looked up above it, to one of the towering, robed monoliths.

‘We remember them. We remember how they were driven to us, uncaring in stone as they are in heaven. The mortals, they prayed to them, while we were the ones who protected them, who saved them. And now they mock you, child, impassive even as they drain me.’

‘The statues … kill you?’

‘Merely remind us,’ the Abysmyth said, ‘as they will remind you of your own impotence. They take our strength. They take our faithful. It is the way of gods to take.’

‘I don’t know,’ Denaos said. ‘I’ve seen what that poison does to you. You’re as good as dead and you can’t reach me. Seems the Gods are doing fine, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘And do they protect you from the whispers, my child?’

He froze, staring at the demon. As far as he knew, the creatures lacked the ability to smile at all, let alone smugly. But in the darkness, it certainly looked like the thing was trying its damnedest.

‘Do they care that you live in torment? Do they hide your prying eyes from visions of your shame? Do they guard your thoughts against the sins that lurk beneath them?’

‘Shut up,’ Denaos whispered.

‘I speak nothing but the truth. The Sermonic speaks nothing but the truth. Find salvation in her whispers.’

‘Shut up,’ he snarled, taking a step backward.

‘Where will you run, child?’ it croaked. ‘Where will you hide? There is no darkness deeper than your soul’s. She will find you. She will speak to you. You will hear her. You will rejoice.’

He resolved not to listen any further, resolved to remove himself. He was supposed to be running, to be hiding from her. And from her. He took another step backward, sparing only a moment to rub a spiteful glare into the dying demon’s wound. He turned.

She was there. He stared directly into her smile.

Both of them.

‘Don’t you scream,’ she whispered.

Denaos disobeyed.

His terror echoed through the courtyard, reverberated off every stone, every corpse, ringing clear as a bell. The woman was gone, but the sound persisted. In its wake, a thick silence settled with the mist. The world was quiet.

And he heard the whispers.

Hearyouhearyouhearyou, they emanated in his head, comingcomingcoming …

At the distant edge of the courtyard, he spied a gap in the wall, illuminated by a faint blue light. It pulsed, growing brighter, waxing and waning like an icy heart beating as it grew more vivid, as it drew closer. He held his breath, stared at the light as it came around the gap.

And he beheld the monstrosity from which it emanated.

At first, all he saw was the head: a bulbous, quivering globe of grey flesh tilted upward toward the sky. Black eyes shone like the shrouded, starless void to which they stared. From a glistening brow, a long stalk of flesh snaked, bobbing aimlessly before the creature and terminating in a fleshy sac from which the azure light pulsed.

It glowed mercilessly, refusing to spare him the sight of the creature as it slithered into view. Withered breasts hung from a skeletal rib cage as it pulled the rest of its body – a long, eel-like tail where legs should be – upon thin, emaciated arms.

It wasn’t until it emerged fully from behind the gap, until Denaos could see its face in full that he felt fear. But the moment he beheld it, he was frozen. Beneath the fist-sized eyes, skeletal jaws brimmed with teeth like bent needles. They gaped open, exposing another mouth between them, a pair of soft and womanly lips, full and glistening, twitching, moving.

Whispering.

‘She comes, child,’ the Abysmyth gurgled, its dying voice fast fading. ‘She comes to deliver you … You cannot hide …’

Denaos disagreed.

Perhaps Silf truly did love him enough to send the clouds roiling over the moon to bathe the courtyard in darkness. Perhaps it was dumb luck. Denaos didn’t intend to question it. He flung himself to the earth, finding the thickest corpse in a particularly well-armoured netherling and hunkering down behind her.

He chanced a look, peering up over his cover of flesh and iron, to see the creature, this Sermonic, dragging itself bodily into the courtyard. Its void-like eyes swept the mist as its outer jaws chattered, the sound of teeth clacking against bone heard with every twitch. All the while, the soft and feminine lips pouted behind those jagged teeth, muttering whispers that shifted from formless babble to sharp, honed daggers.

KnowyouarethereKnowyouarethere …

He heard them keenly now, felt them rattle through his being. The urge to scream rose within him; he nearly choked on it. He averted his eyes, but he could not protect his ears, even as he pressed his hands over them.

WhereareyouWhereareyou … comeoutcomeoutcomeout …

He bent low to the ground, felt the blue lantern light sweep over his position and continue past. The creature chattered, clicked its teeth in ire. He heard its claws rake the ground and pull a massive weight across the courtyard.

He dared to look up and saw the creature continue across the ground, winding between corpses, sweeping its light over the mist. Behind it, lights trailed, flashing the same blue glow that emanated from its stalk.

HearyouHearyou … NoisythoughtsNoisyNoisy … KnowyourthoughtsKnowKnow …

The whispers echoed in his mind, felt like sand on his skull. He could feel his brain twitch under them, as though the creature’s claws followed them and plucked at every thought inside his head like harp strings.

Sorrowsorrowsorrow … Hatehatehate …

The creature craned its neck about, its lantern lighting up its inner lips in a morbid smile.

Knivesknives … Darkdarkdark … Screamingscreamingscreaming …

He blinked and the images flashed behind his eyes once more. He saw each whisper painted on his lids, saw the knife coming down and beheld a red blossom.

Bloodbloodblood … soMUCHbloodblood …

He forced his eyes open and saw the creature begin to angle its unwieldy body around with some difficulty. Seeing an opportunity, he crept from one body to another, slinking low through the mist. His dagger remained far from his hand; striking the creature was not on his mind. Escape was.

He spied a rent in the nearby walls. He could make it, he thought; he could slip through it, vanish in the greenery. If the creature didn’t see him now, it certainly wouldn’t in the forest. From there, he could make his way to shore, he could escape.

All he had to do was reach it and—

Killedherkilledherkilledher …

He froze.

Watchedherdiediedie …

He fought to keep his eyes open.

Poorgirlgirl … lovedyoulovedloved …

It didn’t help. He could see the images flashing before him now, even as his eyes stung with salt and went dry.

Killedherkilledherkilledher …

A scream began to well up in his throat, carried on a boil of tears.

Killedkilledkilled …

His hand fumbled for the bottle, fingers too weak to grasp it. He felt the light sweep toward him, settle on the corpse he lay behind.

KILLEDKILLEDKILLEDHER …

He opened his mouth. A choked whimper emerged.

‘Denaos?’

Instantly, the whispers retreated. He felt his mind relax, his body go slack. The images left his mind, just as the light left him. He watched it through blurry vision as it swept along the courtyard, heading for another hole in the wall through which the orange light of a torch flickered and a voice emerged.

‘Are you in here?’ Asper called.

Relief died in his heart. He looked up and saw the creature’s twin jaws smile a pair of horrific grins as the light waned. The last thing he saw of the beast was its chattering teeth as the lantern’s blue light dimmed.

And then died.

This is your chance.

It was a foul thought to think, he knew, but it was true. He could escape now. He could flee.

And she would die.

But what could he do? The creature, whatever it was, was clearly too strong for her, or for him.

But together …

No, no. He thumped his head. There was no telling what the thing was, if it could even be killed, by a hundred or two. Where was the sense in offering it up two victims instead of one? Where was the sense in lingering behind? What would be the point of it all?

He sucked in a breath. A thought came to him, clear and concise.

Redemption, however insignificant.

He clenched his teeth and reached for his bottle.

She shouldn’t be surprised, Asper told herself. She should have expected this; even something as simple as going to get water, even something as noble as easing a companion’s fever was beyond the rogue. The ability to perform any act that wasn’t completely selfish was beyond Denaos as a matter of nature. She knew this, as she knew she shouldn’t be surprised.

Let alone hurt.

Every step, she scolded herself with a fury that burned as hot as the torch in her hand. To think that she had told him she had once relied on him, even in such a roundabout manner as she had. Undoubtedly he relived that moment, those words, revelled in them, laughed at how much power he had held over her.

She loathed him for it, but for every ounce of scorn she spared for him she took two more for herself. She was the one who had told him. And even if she told herself that she had left Dreadaeleon behind to find water herself, she knew that she searched for the rogue with equal intent.

As for what that intent was, she thought as she looked at the torch thoughtfully, she would know when she found him.

So raptly did her loathing capture her attention that she hadn’t even seen where she had wandered. The rock wall she had followed had become a decaying ruin, rife with mist and silence. She swept her torch about; the darkness of the night drank her fire and offered only inky blackness in exchange.

She had taken three more steps into the gloom before the thought occurred, not for the first time, that she was wasting her time. To go searching for a man whom she had once seen evade scent hounds while doused in cherry liquor and whorestink was folly enough, but to expend so much effort on a man for whom getting doused in cherry liquor and whorestink was a frequent occurrence was simply stupid.

Let him cling to the power she had so foolishly offered him, she thought, let his laughs be black. She turned about, held her chin high and tried not to care.

The wind picked up, sending the mist roiling about her ankles and her torch’s light flickering. It carried with it a stink of salt and the faded coppery stench of dried blood. The moon shifted overhead, exposing a scant trace of light over her.

And with it, a shadow.

She turned and beheld the monolith, towering over her. She did not recognise it, she did not know it. But something inside her did. Her left arm began to sear with pain, to pulse angrily. She let out a shriek, holding it tightly against her body, not daring to drop her torch. Instead, she raised the light to the statue, exposing it to fire.

A great robed figure stared back at her. Its left arm was extended, robe open to expose a thin, skeletal limb. She recognised the arm. Just as the arm recognised itself, throbbing angrily at its stone reflection. Biting back pain, she stared farther up at the statue. Beneath the stone hood, a skull grinned back at her.

And spoke.

Cursedcursedcursed …

Her eyes widened at the sound inside her head that echoed into her heart. She whirled about, searching for the source of the whispers.

Godsabandonedyouabandonedyou … hateyouhateyouhateyou …

‘No,’ she whispered. She clenched her teeth as thoughts came racing back to her, images of two young girls in a temple, a flash of bright, agonising red, and one young girl walking out. ‘No.’

Cursedcursedcursed … killedherkilledher … TaireTaireTaire …

It was with the mention of that name that the pain began. Her arm ached, burned with an unbearable agony that pulsed in time with the beat of her heart.

The torch fell from her hand and its light was smothered in the mist. But even as darkness fell upon her in a thick cloak, Asper’s world was still bright and blindingly crimson. The arm twitched, pulsed beneath her sleeve, and she could feel its heat through the cloth. She writhed, collapsed to her knees and moaned into the darkness.

‘Stop … please stop,’ she whimpered, unable to hear her own voice.

TaireTaireTaire … deaddeaddead … gonegonegone … nothingleftnothingnothing …

‘Why?’ she wailed. ‘Why, Talanas? Why? What did I do this time?’ She held her arm up to the sky and shrieked. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’

Godsgodsgods …

The whispers came now, slowly and brimming with a bitterness where before there was only sharp malice.

Don’tcaredon’thearwon’tlistencan’thelparen’ttherewon’thelpcan’thelp …

And slowly, the pain in her arm began to abate, to subside from agonising throb to dull and steady ache. Her pain began to seep out of her in hot breaths. The whispers, however, continued.

Weren’ttherenottheredidn’tlistendidn’thelpabandonedleftus-cursedusloathedus …

She should escape. She should run.

But Denaos …

No. She pushed him out her mind with hate, hatred for herself for thinking of him even as her body was racked and her mind on fire, for thinking of him when her arm was awakened. She fought the whispers, tried not to listen to them as they became moans in her ears.

LeftusMotherlovesustellsusspeakstousgodswon’tgodsdon’tgods-gonegonegonegonegone …

She looked to the rent in the wall through which she had come and took two steps before becoming aware of the fact that she could see it. In an instant, she knew that made no sense; the moon was shrouded, the torch was dead.

Where had the blue light come from?

HatehatehatehatehateHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE …

A low, chattering sound rose from behind her.

She whirled, and the scream was drowned from her as two mouths of teeth and lips opened as one, emitting a screech that overwhelmed all other senses. Pain, fear, instinct were rendered mute before the wailing. Her voice followed a moment after as she felt a pair of cold hands wrap about her throat.

She had no screams to offer the sight that awaited her, had barely the clarity of mind to take in the full extent of the creature. Its lantern swayed between them on a long and glistening stalk, bathing its bulbous head in waves of light and shadow. She saw a pair of mouths – twisted and sharp, soft and female – torn between gaping, toothy growl and broad, wicked smile.

It did not occur to Asper to fight, to struggle against the creature or even to scream. The abomination transfixed her with horror, rendering her capable only of staring in gaping, mind-numbed abhorrence. She was aware of being lifted from the ground, drawn toward its glistening, jagged outer teeth. She was aware of the creature’s vast void-like eyes dilating into tiny pinpricks of blackness against froth-coloured whites. But she was aware of nothing else.

Certainly not the shadow rising up behind the creature.

Both priestess and abomination were made keenly aware of Denaos’ presence in a blink of silver, however, as the man’s knife flashed out of the gloom and sank deeply into the creature’s collarbone. The beast growled, rather than shrieked; more annoyed than furious. It twisted its neck to see its attacker.

Denaos pulled his blade free from the creature, and at the sight of blood pouring from the wound, Asper’s senses returned to her with a fury. She began to hit, kick at the creature, pulled at its webbed claws and drove her feet into soft, rubbery flesh. The thing turned its attention to her and snarled, offended by her sudden vigour, as it tightened its grip on her throat.

Her fury was choked from her in an instant, her life quick on its heels. Denaos was quicker; his knife came up again, digging into the creature’s armpit, and twisted. The beast roared this time, but there wasn’t nearly enough blood to justify agony. It tossed Asper aside, sent her skidding through the mist, and turned upon Denaos, black voids bubbling with rage.

Asper pulled herself from the earth, ignored the stench of death on the ground, and looked toward the battle unfurling.

Denaos did not cringe, did not turn and run. His form was smooth and flowing, an ink stain on the mist, as he brought his weapon back up to face the creature. It, too, flowed, body swaying from side to side, its lantern illuminating only one combatant each moment.

She saw the fight in flashes of blue light. The creature twitched, hurled itself forward, claws outstretched. Denaos flowed backward; his blade leapt. The thing’s lantern erupted in a burst of blue coupled by twin shrieks as it drew back, clutching a webbed hand with three fingers of steel jammed through the palm.

The lantern glowed white-hot for a moment as the creature recoiled. Then, the flashes of light became bursts and the battle raged in the darkness between them.

It lunged. Denaos reached for his belt. There was the sound of glass shattering, the odour of liquor. It growled, stretched jaws open, lashed a hand out. There was a shriek, this one male and agonisingly human. There was the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.

And then, silence.

The light returned slowly. It waxed to a pinprick; she could see it drift down to a man’s face contorted in pain, breath sucked in through teeth clenched. It became the size of a fist and she saw a grey webbed hand, stained dark with blood and dripping with whisky, reach down to grab the tall man by a throat smeared with green-stained claw marks.

When it bloomed, Asper stared at Denaos hanging from the creature’s choking grasp.

She rose to help him, but found her body fighting between her commands and the throbbing pain in her arm. She whimpered, clutched it, tried to stagger to her feet.

‘Not now, not now, not now,’ she whined, ‘please, just let me … just this once. Please!’

‘Hot,’ a voice answered in reply. ‘Hot … hot …’

She felt Dreadaeleon beside her, the fever of his body seeping out of his glowing red eyes. His hair hung about his face, coat about his body as he swayed precariously on overtaxed feet. He stared at the monstrosity and the rogue without acknowledgement for the latter’s imminent demise. Instead, he merely raised a hand, a small circle of orange glowing upon his palm.

‘Hot,’ he whispered, eyes suddenly blossoming into burning red flowers. ‘HOT!’

The word that followed next, she did not hear. But she did see the circle become a spark, flickering and twisting like a rose petal as it flew from his palm and wafted with an orange glow toward the two combatants. The creature took no notice of it as it sizzled over the mist, nor did it look away from its victim as the little spark drifted up and came to a rest with a hiss upon the thing’s whisky-soaked brow.

HothothothotHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT …

The whispers came in short, staccato shrieks. Denaos was dropped, forgotten as the creature erupted into flames. It writhed in a pillar, blue light sputtering out in the inferno that consumed it. Asper thought she could see something in its figure, now illuminated in the blaze, that seemed vaguely familiar. The shape of its torso, a mockery of womanly figures, perhaps, or the feathery gills that were burnt away like sticks of incense as it hurled itself to the earth.

She wasn’t about to try to get a closer look as the horror pulled its body across the ground, leaving a trail of ash behind it. Its wails, its whispers left her mind as the creature left the courtyard, pulling its burning body through a hole in the wall to disappear into the night.

Asper watched it for but a moment before her attentions were brought back to the scrawny boy beside her, legs giving out beneath him.

‘Did it …?’ Dreadaeleon muttered as he collapsed onto his back. ‘Saved again …’

She knelt beside him, felt his brow. The fever was no worse that she could tell; it was simply exhaustion stacked upon exhaustion. That simple spark had pushed him to a brink he was nowhere near well enough to tread upon. And like the spark, he flickered. He needed water; he needed rest.

‘Stay …’ he whispered, reaching for her. ‘Hot … hurts … but I did it … I saved …’

‘I know you did,’ she replied, smoothing the hair from his brow. ‘And I’ll be here, but I have to help Denaos, too.’

‘Denaos?’ His eyes and mouth twisted into anger. ‘Denaos? He did nothing! It was me! I saved you! I’m the hero!’ He tried to rise, but fell back, gasping. ‘I’m the … the …’

‘Please, Dread,’ she pleaded as she laid him back down to the stones. ‘Just a moment.’

‘A*sholes,’ he muttered as his eyes closed, mouth still contorted in a snarl. ‘Both of you.’

No time to heed or take offence, she rose from his side and hurried to Denaos’. Pulling his head up to her lap, she could see the wound in his neck, the seeping green venom. She checked him over quickly, hands flying across his body. His breathing was swift and laboured, but steady. His muscles were tensed, but neither turning to jelly nor hardening with preemptive rigour. His pulse raced, but was there. He was wounded and poisoned, but he wasn’t going to die.

Because of her.

‘Gone,’ he whispered.

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘it ran away.’

‘I meant my whisky,’ he croaked out through a dry mouth.

‘Yeah. Sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’ He grinned. ‘Not completely, anyway.’ He tried to muster a brave laugh, but wound up cringing. ‘It hurts.’

‘The wound’s not the worst I’ve seen,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I think you might—’

‘Last rites.’

‘What?’

‘Last rites.’

‘No, you’re not—’

‘I don’t want to die without absolution.’

The hand he laid on her arm was gentle. Her arm throbbed beneath his touch, rejecting the warmth of another human being. She fought the urge to tear it away.

‘I don’t want to die,’ he whispered.

She knew she couldn’t offer him last rites; he wasn’t going to die. There were no signs of a fatal poisoning; the claws had missed his jugular, and the venom likely wouldn’t do much more than hurt terribly. For all the wretched things he had done, he was going to live … again.

To offer last rites would be deception, a sin.

She could have told him that.

‘Absolution,’ she said instead, in a gentle voice, ‘requires confession.’

‘I …’ His eyelids flickered with his trembling words. ‘I – I killed her.’

‘Killed who?’

‘She was … it … so beautiful. Just cut her … no pain, no screaming. Sacred silence.’

‘Who was it, Denaos?’ Urgency she did not understand was in the quaver of her voice and the tension of her hands. ‘Who?’

The next words he spoke were choked on spittle. The agony was plain in his eyes, as was the alarm as he looked past her shoulder, gaping. He raised a finger to the cleft tops of the walls. She followed the tip of it, saw them there, and stared.

And in the darkness, dozens of round, yellow eyes stared back.