Black Halo

Fifteen

PREFERABLE DELUSIONS



‘That could have gone better.’

‘Really? I thought it went rather well. In hindsight, I suppose we should have killed the one with the bow, first.’

‘Hindsight.’

‘Yes. I could have done with a bit more planning, couldn’t I?’

‘Planning.’

‘Look, if you’re just going to repeat everything I say, I can really have this conversation by myself.’

‘There was no PLAN.’ His head trembled, brains rattling against bone. ‘There was only you indulging your madness and nearly ending us.’

‘I’m … I’m sorry, I just felt—’

‘Feeling is a corruption of the mind and body. Feeling is what we eradicate from ourselves before we eradicate whatever did this to us.’

‘Whatever did this … to us?’

‘Something was in our head. Something is interfering with our duty, my commands. Something … we must kill it.’

‘We must kill something.’

‘Not just kill it. Maim it. Burn it. Eviscerate it. Rip it apart and press its meat between sharp rocks. Cleanse it.’

‘What is it?’

‘Unknown.’

‘So … do I just start eviscerating and hope I get lucky?’

A frigid silence consumed him.

‘Do not grow smug.’

‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Do not grow confident. Do not grow comfortable. Do not let anything stewing in the tepid mush boiling in your skull convince you that you are in control.’

‘What do you—?’

‘I saved you from your suicidal madness. I saved you from the demons. I continue to preserve your life in the name of our duty.’

‘But what is it? What is our duty?’

‘That you do not know is only further proof that you do not deserve the legs you are allowed to walk with. I save you only that we may fulfil our duties. What I preserve, I can destroy.’

‘That would seem a little contradictory, wouldn’t it? Destroy me and you die, too … don’t you?’

‘I did not say,’ a gentle breeze caressed his mind, ‘that I would destroy you.’

‘What does that mean?’

The wind died.

‘What does that mean?’

Warmth returned.

‘What are you?’

‘I’m here,’ said another voice. ‘I’m right here.’

‘What? Where?’

‘Here, Lenk. I’m right here.’

A swift, erratic beat of a drum: certain of nothing.

It reached her as she pressed her ear against his chest, rising up from some deep place inside him. It had come to her before in fleeting whispers, murmurs, the occasional frantic scream. Now his heart hummed softly, sighing inside his body.

And though she knew she should try to resist it, her smile grew with each beat.

‘He’s alive,’ she whispered. She let her head rest upon his chest, felt it rise and fall with each breath. Her eyes closed. ‘Damn.’

It would have been easier if he had died, if he had stayed dead. She could have shed a tear, said a few words of memory, and called herself a shict again. She looked to the bandages covering his wounds, smelled the aroma of their salve. She could rip those off right now, she thought, and he would be dead and her problems would be solved. It was another opportunity, another chance to prove herself. And again, she couldn’t kill him.

You couldn’t even watch him die, she scolded herself. You couldn’t even have just sat back and let him die. Why couldn’t you do at least that?

Kataria sighed in time with his heartbeat; it was never that easy.

Her ears twitched as his muscles spasmed under his skin. Bones moaned, blood began to flow unhindered; he was waking up. She pulled back, heard his eyelids flutter open and held her breath as they peeled back fully. He groaned, turned his head and stared at her.

Two blue eyes, brilliant with the moisture that flooded them, looked up. Two blue eyes, she released her breath in a relieved exhale, with pupils in them. It was Lenk looking up at her, and not whoever else dwelt inside him. It was Lenk’s eyes blinking, Lenk’s lips twitching.

Lenk’s trembling hand, reaching up to touch her.

You could go now, you know, she told herself. You could run away and he would tell himself it was all a dream. You could find another way off the island and never see him again. Then, at least, you could say you didn’t sit there and let him touch you. It would be easy.

She saw the bleariness clear from his eyes, tears drying in the sun seeping through the thatched roof. She felt his fingers on her cheek, felt her shame straining to be heard as she pressed her face into his palm. She could feel his heartbeat through his fingertips, growing faster, and sighed.

It was never that easy.

‘You …’ he whispered, his voice choked.

‘Me,’ she replied. She saw her canines reflected in his eyes. She saw her own smile. ‘Damn.’

He didn’t seem to hear her, barely even seemed to see her. His sole sense was touch, and he explored her with it. She felt the ridges of his fingers, the calluses of his palm on a skin of sweat as his hand traced her face. His fingers creased under her nose, traced the ridges of her lips. She could feel her breath break upon his fingertips, feel its heat.

He’s just mindlessly probing, she told herself. Groping like a monkey. He is a monkey, remember? He probably thinks he’s still asleep … or dead. You can still run, or you can push him away. When she felt herself leaning into his touch again, she all but screamed at herself. For Riffid’s sake, at least bite him or something!

‘You’re real,’ he whispered.

His hand slid farther up, plunging into her hair. She felt the sweat of her scalp under it mingle with his skin, felt his hand gentle upon her.

It’s not gentle, she reminded herself. Remember how many people he’s killed. Remember how easily he killed them. He’s not gentle. Stop thinking he is.

A sensation cold and hot at once, like a chill breeze on sweat-kissed skin, lanced through her body, causing it to shudder. She drew in a sharp breath as his fingers found the notches in her right ear, tracing them carefully.

Oh, you can’t be serious, she all but shrieked. Those are your ears! Shict ears, stupid! He can’t touch those! They’re … they’re sacred! They’re precious … they’re … he …

‘You’re alive,’ he whispered. His smile was easy, bereft of the malice and confusion she had seen in him before. ‘You’re alive … you’re …’ She felt his hand stop suddenly, something brushing against his hand. ‘Your feathers.’ He blinked, as if remembering. ‘You never leave your feathers behind.’

‘Not usually, no,’ she replied. It felt easy to tell him now, the words spilling from her lips. ‘But this time I—’

She felt his fingers wrap around her locks, pull hard. She felt the sudden stab of pain as the shriek escaped her lips.

It was easy to punch him after that as she brought her fist against his jaw and sent his head snapping to the side.

‘You stupid little kou’ru,’ she snarled, baring fangs. ‘What the hell was that for?’

And when he brought his face back, rubbing his jaw with the hand that was still slick with her sweat, it was easy to return the broad, stupid grin he gave to her.

‘I had to know,’ he said, his laughter harsh and parched.

‘You couldn’t have just asked?’

‘If you were a hallucination, you’d have said “yes”.’ He looked thoughtful, his grin growing broader. ‘Then again, if you were a hallucination you’d probably be …’ His eyes drifted lower, widening. ‘Um … nude.’ He rubbed the back of his neck, clearing his throat. ‘So, ah … not that I don’t have more impressive things to say, but I feel I must ask.’ He levelled a finger at her chest. ‘Why are you wearing that?’

She followed his finger to the scanty garment of brown fur wrapped about her breasts. From there, she followed his eyes down to her naked midriff and to the loincloth hanging off her sand-covered, pale thighs.

‘For the same reason,’ she said, prodding his bare, wiry chest, ‘you’re wearing that.’

Up until that point, she never thought that humans were capable of leaping nearly so high or turning such a shade of red. He slapped at his body, naked but for a similar garment tied about his hips, as if wondering if his clothes had perhaps seeped under his skin.

The panic fled after a moment of desperate slapping, leaving him staring thoughtfully at his new garb and the bandage wrapped tightly about his thigh.

‘So …’ He looked from his loincloth, then up to her. ‘Did I miss something fun?’

‘Well, the fun only started after you passed out from blood loss,’ she replied.

‘As usual,’ he grunted, looking about. ‘So, where are my pants? Where’s …’ His eyes widened, scanning the sandy floor intently. ‘Where’s my sword? I had it! I had it right—’

‘It’s elsewhere,’ she replied, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Calm down. Your pants, what remained of them, were filthy and covered in piss.’

Lenk blinked, turned a leery eye on her.

‘Whose piss?’

‘Your piss.’ She cringed a little at his visible relief. ‘You may have been unconscious, but your other … parts were still working despite you. The smell became unbearable after the third time.’

‘I suppose that explains this.’ He fingered his loincloth. ‘But why did you dress yourself that way, too? And not that I don’t appreciate your enthusiasm for cleanliness, but couldn’t you have just cleaned my pants?’

‘You think I did this?’ She slapped her torso. ‘Listen, you demented little shaven mole, if I wanted to see so much scrawny flesh I could have just plucked a chicken.’ She sighed and leaned back on her hands. ‘I passed out on my way here and woke up like this. They’re not too big on modesty here.’

Lenk raised an eyebrow.

‘They?’

‘They.’ She gestured over his head with her chin. ‘Specifically, him.’

And it was at that point, as he turned his head to his other side, that she realised how high humans could jump. She grinned, studying him even as he studied the creature squatting beside him, reliving the moments she had experienced when she had awakened under their tremendous yellow gazes.

Bulbous eyes, larger than overripe grapefruits and apparently desperate to escape the green, short-snouted skull they were ensconced in, were undoubtedly the first thing he noticed. From there, he would see the creature’s squat and scaly body, the apparent horrific crossbreed of a gecko and an ale keg, with four stubby appendages ending in three pudgy digits.

He would then find the most unsettling fact that it wore clothes. The creature absently scratched its furry loincloth and adjusted the round black hat, too small for its large head. One eye remained locked on Lenk while its other independently swivelled up over a pair of smoked-glass spectacles to look at Kataria.

‘’S’the matter with him?’ the creature asked in a voice bass enough to make Lenk jump again.

‘Fever,’ Kataria replied. ‘He’s just a little strange right now.’

‘I’m a little strange?’ Lenk replied, voice hoarse with surprise.

‘Oh, hey, ’s’not polite, cousin,’ the creature said, shaking its massive head. ‘King Togu always want politeness in Teji, y’know.’

‘King … what?’ Lenk asked, grimacing at the creature. He held up a hand. ‘Wait, wait …’ He turned back to Kataria. ‘First of all, what the hell is it?’

‘He is not an it,’ the shict shot back with a glare. ‘He is an Owauku and his name is Bagagame.’

‘That’s an Owauku?’ Lenk looked back at the creature. ‘And his name … is …’

‘Bagagameogouppukudunatagana-oh-sho-shindo,’ the creature said, a long and yellow grin splitting his face apart as he tipped his hat. ‘M’the herald o’ King Togu, welcomin’ you to Teji.’

‘So … Bagagame.’

‘Sure, cousin.’ His head sank considerably, smile disappearing behind dark green lips. ‘Go ahead and call me that. Not like I got a name that means anything special as my father might have given me to boil down my entire lineage into a single word. No. Bagagame ’s’fine.’

‘Oh, ah …’ Lenk rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Listen, I never really expected a lizard to have ancestry that I could insult, so …’

‘Yeah,’ Bagagame grunted. ‘M’just so damn pleased you’re up and awake and not babbling anymore in your sleep.’

‘I was babbling?’ Lenk’s curiosity swiftly became shock, and he turned to Kataria. ‘You let him watch me sleep?’

‘Well, he wasn’t really interested until you pissed yourself,’ she replied, shrugging.

‘Why did you let him do that?’

‘I couldn’t very well say no; it’s his house. He volunteered before any of the others could.’

He swept his eyes about the reed hut, the thatched roof, and mats of woven fronds on the floor. ‘There are more? They have houses? What do lizards need houses for?’

‘Oh, fantastic,’ she sighed. She rolled her eyes in the direction of Bagagame. ‘He’s doing it again.’

‘W’sat?’ the Owauku asked, tilting his head.

‘He does this sometimes, starts repeating everything in the form of a question.’ She tapped her temple. ‘He wasn’t too right to begin with and the fever hasn’t helped. You’d better go get ah-he man-eh-wa.’

‘I kuu you, cousin,’ Bagagame said, bobbing his head and rising up. ‘M’had a fellow once, acted like way, kuuin’ things that weren’t there. W’beat him over the head a bit.’ He turned a bulging, thoughtful stare to Lenk. ‘Y’sure that wouldn’t just be easier?’

Lenk blinked.

‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Do things the hard way, huh? Yeah, I’ll grab ah-he man-eh-wa.’ He hopped to the leather flap serving as a door. ‘Togu’s gonna be wantin’ to talk with you after.’

Kataria watched the flap open and saw the various green shapes moving about in the bright sunlight beyond, the errant burble of their alien languages drifting into the hut. They were silenced as Bagagame slid out and she turned back to Lenk, eager to see another layer of horrified shock on his face.

What she saw instead was him lying supine on the sand, his arm draped over his eyes. She studied his wiry body, the slight twitch of his muscles as he drew in deep breaths and exhaled them as stale, weary air. His body had become tense, trembling with every sigh he made.

For as much as he seemed to enjoy being grim and silent, Lenk was not the most difficult human to read, she thought. Even if he never spoke his feelings, his body told her enough. He seemed to compress as he lay upon the sand, some great weight pressing him down upon the earth.

She opened her mouth to speak when her thoughts leapt unbidden to the fore of her mind.

Don’t, she told herself. Don’t ask him what’s wrong. You know what he’ll say. He’s thinking about what you said on the boat before the Akaneeds attacked. He’ll ask you why you said them, why you said you had to kill him to feel like a shict again. Then he’ll ask you why you’re still here, having said all that, why you didn’t kill him. Don’t ask him. Don’t tell him. He’s just now recovering; he can’t handle the answer.

Yeah. She sighed inwardly, rubbing her eyes. He’s the one that can’t handle it.

‘How long?’

‘What?’ She looked up with a start. ‘How long what?’

‘Have I been out?’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘About two days.’

‘Two days,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve been out for two days and on the island for two days. Four days total, three days past the time we were supposed to meet Sebast so he could take us back.’ He cracked a smile. ‘I’m assuming we lost the tome, too?’

‘It hasn’t been found, no,’ Kataria said, shaking her head. ‘The lizardmen have been fishing things out of the ocean for a while now, but no book.’

‘Well,’ he sighed, folding his arms behind his head. ‘I suppose it doesn’t really matter if we don’t get picked up, then, does it?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she offered. ‘The Owauku haven’t said anything about a ship arriving in the past few days. Sebast might just be late.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘I suppose that isn’t much comfort, though.’

It would certainly be less comfort, she reasoned, to tell him that Sebast might not be coming because his search party was currently being digested and excreted by roaches. She held her tongue at that, knowing that the loss of the tome would likely be too much for him to bear.

It didn’t appear to be, for his smile didn’t diminish. Even when his lips quivered, it only grew a little larger. His eyes didn’t grow any colder, their blue suddenly seeming less like frigid sheets of ice and more like the sea, endless and peaceful.

And even as she stared back at him, he didn’t turn them away from her.

That, she knew, was unusual. He had stared at her many times before through many different eyes. She had felt his curiosity, his anger, his yearning all hammered upon her back through his stare. And always, he had turned away like a sheep before a wolf when she turned to meet his stare.

Now, it was she who felt the urge to turn away. It was she who felt her smile as sheepish upon her face. To see him so … pleasant, without his sword and without blood spattering his face, was so unusual she couldn’t help but feel as though it were somehow wrong, as though he were naked without violence and anger.

As if you needed any more reason to run.

‘We’re trapped here, you know,’ she said, ‘for the foreseeable future, at least. We have no weapons, no tome, no clothes. We’re stuck amidst a bunch of walking reptiles and you just barely survived an arrow through your leg.’ She sneered, leaning back onto her hands. ‘So, just in case you’d forgotten, there really isn’t anything to smile about.’

‘I suppose not,’ he replied, ‘but things are a lot better than they were two days ago.’

‘Things will get worse.’

‘They always do,’ he agreed, nodding. ‘But for now …’

For now, she told herself, you should be dead. It should have been me to kill you. For now, I’m sitting here feeling like a helpless idiot because I’m the one turning away from your stare. For now, I let you … touch me like that. My father thinks a human touch can infect a shict, and you touched me that way. You touched my ears! For now, I should kill you, I should run, I should kill myself so I don’t have to think about you and your horrible diseased race and your round ears.

As the thoughts ran through her head, only two words made it to her lips.

‘For now?’ she asked.

‘For now,’ he said, smiling. ‘We’re alive.’

‘Yeah,’ she sighed, returning her smile. ‘All of us.’

He blinked, his face screwing up in confusion.

‘Did you say all of us?’

‘She did,’ came a familiar voice from the leather flap.

A smile crossed both their faces at the sight of a head full of thick brown locks over a hazel stare peering through the doorframe. The smile beneath it was slight, but warm, genuine and comfortably familiar.

‘All of us,’ Kataria repeated, gesturing to the door. ‘Including ah-he man-eh-wa here.’

‘I see,’ Lenk said, smiling.

‘You can still call me Asper,’ the priestess replied. ‘The Owauku are fond of long names, apparently.’

‘I noticed.’ A long moment of silence passed awkwardly before Lenk finally coughed. ‘So, uh, are you going to come in?’

‘Yeah … sure, just …’ The priestess fidgeted behind the door. ‘Just don’t rush me.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Kataria said, smirking. ‘Ah-he man-eh-wa apparently means “shy when near-nude.”’

‘You’re near-nude, too,’ Asper spat through the door and tilted up her nose. ‘And those of us without the physique of an adolescent boy have something to be considered worth concealing.’

‘Is that right?’ Kataria snarled. ‘Maybe you can pray some clothes up, then? Like you prayed us to have a safe journey?’

‘Physique and wits to match,’ Asper growled at her. ‘It’s those prayers, and the faith that accompanies them, that are keeping me from bashing you in the head.’

‘With what? Those colossal haunches of yours?’ Kataria bared her canines at the priestess. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

‘So …’ Lenk shifted his stare between the two of them. ‘Did I miss something really fun, then?’

‘It’s nothing.’ Asper’s bashfulness apparently disappeared as she stormed into the hut, a bulging waterskin pressed against her torso. She thrust it into Lenk’s hands as she knelt beside him. ‘I need to check your injury. Drink.’

He did so, greedily, as Asper ran practised hands over his bandaged thigh, applying pressure to certain locations.

‘You tore your stitches open when the Akaneeds attacked,’ she said, not looking up. ‘It wasn’t easy to close you up again. Not to mention clear out the infected skin and salve and stitch up the arrow wound you so charitably left me to work with.’

‘I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t just put me out of my misery, then,’ he replied between gulps.

She hesitated suddenly, spine stiffening. Absently, she rubbed an itch on her arm and returned to work.

‘Yeah,’ she muttered, ‘I guess so.’ She pressed on part of his leg. ‘Did you feel that?’

‘A little,’ he replied, ‘but it didn’t hurt.’

‘Good, good,’ she said, nodding. ‘It wasn’t too bad an infection, thankfully. The Owauku had the medicine and the Gonwa knew how to use it.’

‘Gonwa?’ Lenk arched a brow.

‘The other lizards here,’ Kataria replied. ‘Taller, skinnier … and apparently good with medicine.’

‘Not that their help was all that necessary,’ Asper interjected. ‘Most of the work I did on your wound before held over, so you shouldn’t have been in too much pain.’

At that, Lenk sputtered on his water.

‘Wait, what?’ he asked, gasping for breath. ‘It hurt like hell.’

‘Well, yeah, but not too much, right? You could still walk. Your fever was only mild.’

‘Mild? It felt like my brains were boiling! I was hallucinating! I saw …’

Kataria’s own eyes widened as he turned a cringing, moon-eyed stare at her. She met his gaze for a moment, the sudden quiver in his eyes allowing her to scrutinise him carefully. He turned away.

‘I saw things,’ he muttered.

‘With this infection? I doubt it,’ Asper replied. ‘It was probably just exhaustion.’

‘But I—’

‘You didn’t,’ she said, curtly.

‘He says he did,’ Kataria interjected.

‘Well,’ Asper said, turning a heated glare upon the shict, ‘how nice of you to be concerned for a lowly human.’

At that, Kataria felt her anger quelled only by the shame that blossomed within her like an agonising rose. She’s right, she told herself. I shouldn’t be concerned. She rode that thought to the sandy earth, turning her gaze away.

‘Just eat something,’ Asper said, rising up. ‘You’ll be fine. I’ll check on you later.’ She stalked to the door, heedless of Lenk’s befuddlement of Kataria’s scowl. And yet, she hesitated at the frame, standing in the door flap. ‘Lenk … you know I wouldn’t ever put you out of your misery, right?’

‘Sure, I know.’

‘Good,’ she said. She cast a smile over her shoulder, small and timid. ‘I’m glad you’re all right.’

And then, she swept out of the hut, leaving Lenk blinking and Kataria flattened-eared and hissing at the space left behind.

‘So,’ he said, ‘what was that?’

‘She’s been agitated ever since she started working on you,’ the shict replied, never taking her glower off the door. ‘She started screaming one night, telling everyone to get out … went mad for a while, I don’t know. Denaos certainly hasn’t been a help in calming her down.’

‘Denaos? He’s alive?’

‘And here, as well as Dreadaeleon.’

‘And Gariath?’

She blinked, opened her mouth to reply, then shook her head.

‘Not yet,’ she muttered before quickly adding, ‘if at all.’

‘If at all,’ he echoed, and the weight seemed to return to him.

‘Don’t think about it,’ she said, smiling and placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’d be rather anticlimactic if you worried yourself back into a coma. What say we find you something to eat?’

‘That’d be nice,’ he said, rubbing his belly. ‘I haven’t had anything but tubers and roots.’

‘Ha!’ She clapped her hands. ‘You remembered how to forage just like I taught you! And they said humans couldn’t be trained!’ Laughing, she rose up from the sandy floor. ‘I’ll go hunt something down for you.’

‘I appreciate it,’ he replied.

‘You won’t once you find out what they eat out here.’

She walked to the door, feeling no eyes upon her back and taking great relief in that. She could hear his breath coming in short, steady bursts. His heartbeat no longer plagued her ears. She smiled as she pulled back the leather flap.

Just a passing fascination, she told herself. He was just thrilled to be alive and awake. All his attentions were focused on you because you happened to be there … watching over him. No! She had to resist thumping her temple. No, no. Don’t start. He was … was just like a pup. Yeah. He’s momentarily happy. Once he gets some food, he’ll forget about everything else, about how you were there … about how he touched your ears …

She reached up and tugged on her earlobe. The sensation of his finger, the scent of his sweat mingling with hers, still lingered.

He’ll forget all about it, she told herself, and then so can you.

‘Kat?’

Don’t turn around. Don’t look. Don’t even acknowledge him.

‘Yeah?’ she asked.

‘I’m happy you’re alive.’

‘Yeah,’ she said.

She emerged into the daylight, waited for the leather flap to fall so that she could no longer hear him breathing. Then, she let her heavy chin fall to her chest and let her breath escape in a long, tired sigh.

‘Damn,’ she whispered, stalking off across the sands, ‘damn, damn, damn …’