‘What?’ Her tone was teetering between incredulous and furious.
‘It’s only fair. I’m the one who has to kill the thing.’
‘That wasn’t. .’ Her pain and words alike were lost in a sudden flood of anger driven by a storm of righteous indignation. ‘You’re talking about our friends, our companions, dying.’
‘I. .’ His words failed him as he shook, turning a grimace towards Greenhair, who offered nothing but a concerned glance. ‘I mean, I thought we always did that.’
‘We don’t talk about murdering each other,’ she roared. ‘These are our friends, your friends, dying by your hands.’
‘First of all,’ he mustered a new semblance of confidence in a growl, ‘I said there might be collateral damage.’ He offered a weak smile, a crack in his facade. ‘And, I mean, that would be totally inadvertent, so, it’s really more like dying by my finger.’
Whatever rage might have boiled inside her was not shown on her face. Rather, as though water had been poured over her, she hardened and grew cold, regarding him through an even, unquivering scowl.
‘You make jokes. . about murdering them.’
‘Why are you getting upset at me for being pragmatic?’ He shifted, unsure as to whether he should puff up or back down. ‘You never get this upset at any of the others.’
‘They can’t be helped! You-’ She moved forwards, both fists clenched and ready to strike him in spite of the pain in her right hand. Her face clenched harder, finding it very difficult to summon a reason not to. ‘You. .’ With a sigh, she reached out and gave him a shove. ‘Damn it, Dread. You’re supposed to be the good one.’
He collapsed onto his rear.
Whether it was because he had been rendered stunned by her words or because she had seen him shoved over by toddlers before, she didn’t stop to think. And when he stared at her through an unblinking mask of flattery and confusion, she did not smile.
‘I. . thought it. . uh. .’ He blanched. ‘What?’
She opened her mouth to say something when she suddenly became aware of Greenhair. Or rather, became aware of Greenhair‘s lack of awareness towards them both.
‘And you’ve nothing to say about this?’ Asper growled to the siren’s back.
Apparently not, for the siren merely stared out over the sea, fin erect, gills fluttering. Asper stalked towards her, perhaps intent on forcing her to participate in the fight, perhaps on forcing her to suggest some way to help.
She did neither, however, for as soon as she came up beside the siren, her gaze, too, was locked on the sea and the black ship that stained it.
Creeping across the waves with ebon oars, like the limbs of some great spider, the ship made only the slightest of ripples in the water, cutting through the surf with a jagged, black bow. With singular speed and purpose, it eased itself inevitably towards the shore.
‘What is it?’ Asper glanced over her shoulder at Dreadaeleon, who was also staring at the vessel, unblinking. ‘More pirates?’
‘Not like any I’ve seen.’ The boy shook his head.
‘I have. . made a grave sin.’
They turned towards Greenhair, who now backed away, eyes wide with fear.
‘It was my error to seek help so promiscuously,’ she uttered, wading into the waves.
‘What are you talking about?’ Dreadaeleon asked.
‘Forgive me, lorekeeper,’ she replied, frowning. ‘Forgive me for what I was forced to do and for what may yet happen. Permit me to attempt to atone with a final wisdom.’ She grimaced, her face going rock hard. ‘Hide.’
Before either of them could form an objection, opinion or question, the siren sprang to her feet and tore into the surf. With a graceful leap, she dived beneath the lapping waves and vanished under a blanket of sand and spray, her form sliding further up the coast.
‘Well.’ Asper coughed. ‘That’s. . ominous.’
‘Greenhair!’ Dreadaeleon called, tearing off down the beach. ‘Wait! Come back!’
‘Dread, you fool!’ Asper hissed after him, but she could spare no more time for him.
Her attention was seized by the ship; in the moments she had been looking away, it had crept closer. So close, in fact, that she could now make out its crew.
Eyes the colour of milk. The sound of metal clanking against metal. Alien voices uttering foul indecipherables.
Skin the colour of a fresh bruise.
‘Preserve me, Talanas,’ Asper, alone, whispered, ‘purpleskinned longfaces.’
THE PROPER MINDSET
Restraint, Denaos thought, was a vastly unappreciated trait.
All tense situations relied on it, he knew from an experience that had been long and not fatal, which was more than most in his profession could claim. Restraint was the idea of being the centre of calm in a raging storm, so that while all around would be rent asunder by torrid winds and gales, the centre would remain unnoticed, unscathed.
It had served him well in every situation in which he had hoped to never find himself, from negotiations with watchmen clamping irons about his wrists to talking down a particularly passionate young lady with a sharp knife and an overzealous love of fruits.
Of course, he thought as he felt moist talons dig into his neck, those were all mostly reasonable people. As he glanced out of the corner of his eye at the Abysmyth regarding him dispassionately, he could think of more ideal situations.
And, he added with a sidelong glance at his fellow captive, more ideal companions.
Kataria, it seemed, had no talent or appreciation for restraint. Within the demon’s grasp, she writhed, snarled, spat and gnashed her teeth. While undoubtedly she thought of herself as some ferocious lioness, in the creature’s grasp she more closely resembled a particularly fussy kitten.
The frogman standing before them appeared to share Denaos’s thoughts. Leaning heavily on a staff carved of bone, it ignored the rogue to regard the shict with what looked a lot like haughty mirth. Denaos arched an eyebrow at that; this frogman’s face was twisted in a grin, distinctive from the legions of identical faces past shoulders bereft of their collective stoop.
‘Does it not hurt?’ he asked, and Denaos noted a distinct lack of needle-like teeth in his mouth. ‘Is the futility not agonising? Do you not despair to look upon the rising tide and know that you are so much froth in an endless sea?’
The rogue tightened his lips, regarding the creature suspiciously. He did not recall the frogmen having either a speech pattern unslurred or a penchant for obvious metaphors.
‘The tide cannot be stopped.’ The frogman shook his head. ‘But yours is not a plight without power.’ He leaned closer, his grin becoming more abhorrent than the needle-toothed smiles of the creatures behind him. ‘Surrender to the tide, flow with it as it flows over the world, and become a part of the endless blue.’
‘Drown in it,’ Kataria spat back, with as much force as her position allowed. ‘When you wash up, I’ll kick the crabs out of your carcass.’
‘Sun and sky have blinded you. Wind and dirt have rendered you deaf.’ He made a sweeping gesture and Denaos noted that all five of his fingers spread themselves into thin, pale digits, free of any webbing. ‘Open your ears to the song of Mother Deep. When the earth is drowned and the sky kneels before the sea, it will be far too late to repent.’
Her ears folded flat against her head as she bared her teeth at him and snarled. The frogman, undeterred, reached out with a trembling hand to cup her by the chin. It was with that gesture, that familiar quiver in the fingers which suggested needs far beyond those that could be satisfied by the company of demons, that the realisation finally dawned upon the rogue.
‘You’re human,’ he whispered breathlessly, as though it was some damning discovery.
The unblinking, symmetrical expressions of the Abysmyths and the frogmen beyond him indicated, however, that it was not. The creature himself did not so much as cringe at the accusation, instead turning his leering grin upon the rogue.
‘You are cruel to notice,’ he replied. ‘But Mother Deep needs many mouths, and I am the one selected to remain cursed with the sins of flesh and earth so that others may be guided to Her waiting heaven.’ The frogman twisted a bald head to regard the masses behind him. ‘And am I not rewarded with the adoration of the devoted?’
‘The pain is fleeting,’ the frogmen echoed in unified chorus, ‘the blue is endless.’
‘So says the great Ulbecetonth.’
‘May She reign over a world without the agony demanded by false Gods.’ The frogmen raised their webbed hands and extended them towards the black water. ‘May these ones see Her restored to a throne built over heaven.’
‘It is not too late.’ The leader turned his attention back to Kataria and a sudden light filled his eyes. A desperation, Denaos saw, that he had seen in every man who hungered for the same thing. ‘Forsake your false Gods, as they have forsaken you. Abandon the sins of memory and sky. Feed the Mouth of Mother Deep.’
His lower lip trembled in time with his hand as it and his eyes, now wide and unblinking, lowered themselves to Kataria’s taut, pale form.
‘And he shall speak well in your name.’
The shict’s answer was less eloquent.
Heralded by the sound of ripping flesh and an all-too-mortal squeal, her head shot down like an asp’s to seize the frogman’s hand in her teeth. After a quick, canine jerk, he pulled back a bloody hand and the pain that lit up his eyes seemed even more foreign in the wake of his inhuman congregation. He stared at her, shocked, as she flashed a smile that was morbid and red, chewing on the pink for a moment.
‘Not the mouth you were expecting to be fed,’ she said before spitting it at him, ‘was it?’
The frogmen congregation recoiled in collective horror. They turned to their leader with a terror reserved for those who had seen idols desecrated and loosed a chorus of disharmonious agitation at the pain that flashed across his features and the blood that dripped to the floor. For his part, the Mouth seemed far less confused.
‘Swear unto Her,’ he seethed through clenched teeth. He twisted the head from his bone-carved staff to reveal a jagged blade. ‘Feed Her flock.’ He lunged forwards, seizing her by the throat as he raised the blade, quivering and whetted with his own blood. ‘It matters little to Her.’
Kataria met the threat with teeth bared and a snarl choked in her throat, defiant even as the jagged edge of the blade grinned green against the unnatural torchlight. Denaos, though he was certain some God somewhere hated him even for the effort, had to fight his own grin back down into his throat.
Silf help him, though, it was hard not to be pleased when opportunity bloomed into so sweet a flower.
Quietly, his eye slid up towards the bulbous ivory sphere that stared out blankly over the impending bloodshed. The Abysmyth’s expression hadn’t changed since first laying eyes and webbed hands upon his throat. If not for the shallow breaths that shuddered through its emaciated abdomen, it would be hard to declare the creature alive at all.
