Black Halo

‘I can’t leave,’ he whispered, shaking his head. ‘There’s more to do. The tome …’

‘Will be safe, its terrible knowledge far from any who would use it for ill.’

‘In your hands?’ he asked. ‘That’s not right. Your Abysmyths—’

‘My children,’ she snapped back, ‘are without their mother. They long for family, for my influence. They seek to use the book to return me to their embrace. Afterwards, we will have no further use for it or for bloodshed. Let us live in peace beneath the waves. Forget about us.’

‘All you want … is your family?’

‘What does any mother want?’

‘But Miron said—’

‘PRIESTS LIE.’

The ocean quaked. Sand stirred below; light fled above. The song of the creatures died. The swimming frogmen vanished into engulfing shadows. Corpses fell like lead; wood fell upon them in cairns. Lenk felt his breath draw tight in his chest, unseen fire searing his body.

‘Priests send children to die, condemn them to death, sit too high for the ashes of the burned to reach them and wear hoods to mute the screaming.’ The teeth twisted, gnashed, roared. ‘Priests betrayed me. Betrayed you.’

‘Betrayed me? How? I don’t—’

‘NO.’ The ocean boiled around him, the comforting warmth turning horrendously hot. ‘No more explanations. No more answers. No matter what they call me, I am still a mother. My pity spares you this once. But remember this, you tiny little thing: This is my world. You have a place in it only as long as I will it.’

And with that, his breath was robbed from him. His lungs seized up, throat closed as it fought to keep out the water that flooded his mouth. He clenched at his neck, started thrashing desperately for air that was far too far above him now.

The teeth parted, loosing a long, low bellow, a command in a language far too old for mortal ears to hear. The seas obeyed, rising up to drive Lenk towards the surface. Struggling to hold his breath, he watched the teeth grow faint as he was sent hurtling above.

And yet, her voice only grew louder.

‘A final kindness, mortal. Follow the ice to see what I tried so hard to protect you from. Follow it … Follow that wickedness inside your head and realise that I was only trying to protect you from yourself and everything else. This is all I can offer you. Happiness is far out of your reach. Truth and survival is all you can hope for. Take them while you can.’

In the darkness below, two great golden eyes opened and stared at him with hate.

‘Before I take them back.’

Thirty-Five

THE SINS IN THE STONE

The statue of Zamanthras was well tended. Her high, stone cheeks had been polished. The waves of Her flowing hair were lovingly carved so that each granite strand was distinct and apparent. Her bountiful breasts, uncovered by the thin garment about Her hips, were perfectly round and smooth.

The rest of the temple was in decay, ignored. It had been easy enough to sneak into, unseen. The pillars that marched the crumbling walls were shattered and decayed. Those tapestries that still hung from their sconces were frayed and coated in dust. Supplies, crates and boxes had been stacked beneath them. It appeared that the church had lost its original purpose and had been resigned to storage and other practical needs long ago. He would have accepted that. He would have smiled at that.

If not for the statue.

Zamanthras stared down at the Mouth through stone eyes, smiled at him through stone lips. She was confident in Her own care, smug in Her own polish. They still worshiped, She told him. No matter how deaf She might be, no matter how long their prayers went unanswered, the people would still polish Her statue. The people would wait for Her to save their dying children, to give them enough wealth to buy a loaf of bread. It would never come. They would die and praise Her name even as She watched them languish.

‘No more,’ he whispered. ‘No more wasted prayers. No more dead children.’ He glanced at the vial in his hand, the swirling liquid of Mother’s Milk. ‘It ends here. In Your house.’

Resounding through his skull and the temple alike, a distant heartbeat voiced its deep, droning approval.

Stretching between the Mouth and the Goddess, the temple’s pool stretched as long as ten men in a vast, perfect circle. The waters upon it were placid, unstirred and quiet, not the silvery flow of a lake. This water was dense, heavy, like iron.

A door to a prison.

As he leaned over the edge, staring into the water, the heartbeat grew faster, louder. The Father sensed his presence, sensed the scent of his consort, his mistress, in the Mouth’s hand. Through whatever prison held him, Daga-Mer scented the faintest trace of Mother Deep.

And beneath the iron waters, Daga-Mer railed against his liquid bonds.

Free him, an urge spoke within him, born of anger, tempered by sermon. The Father must be freed before Mother Deep can rise. Mother Deep must rise before this world can change. Remember why She must.

Change, he reminded himself. Change that mortalkind might not tremble in fear. Change that mortalkind might not waste their words on deaf gods. Change that children would not die while their parents languished in doubt.

He stared back up, saw the statue of Zamanthras looking back at him, smiling, challenging him to do so.

Mocking him.

They would tremble, She knew. Change was terrifying. They would pray to Her when Mother Deep rose, She said with a stone voice. Change bred a need for the familiar. She would watch children die, parents die, all in darkness, all in doubt. Change was violent.

Then … A doubt spoke within him, blooming in darkness and watered with despair. What’s the point?

He heard a scrape of feet against stone floors. His own heart quickened; had he been seen? He reached for a knife that wasn’t there. Where was it? He had left it elsewhere, in another life, another house, when he had seen …

He paused, noting the silence. No one was emerging. No one came out to stop him. He glanced about, spying a shadow painted upon the walls by the dim light of the hole in the ceiling.

‘I know you’re there,’ he said. The shadow quivered, shrinking behind the pillar. ‘You shouldn’t be here, you know.’

A bush of black hair peered out from behind the pillar, the girl staring at him with dark eyes that betrayed wariness, caution. She was not panicked. He shouldn’t have smiled at her, he knew. His smile shouldn’t have been intended to reassure her, to coax her out. Change was coming. Many would die. She would likely be among them.

And yet …

‘Neither should you,’ she said to him, leaning out a little more. ‘Mesri says that no one should be in here.’

‘In the city’s temple?’

‘There’s less call for prayer these days,’ she said, easing out from behind the pillar. ‘More call for medicine and food.’

The Mouth eyed the crates stacked against the walls. ‘So they are left here to rot?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she sneered. ‘If we had any, Mesri would have distributed them.’

‘Priests serve the Gods, not man.’

‘Well, if there were any in here, I wouldn’t be scrounging in dark, abandoned houses with weird, pale-skinned strangers,’ she replied sharply. ‘This’ – she gestured to the crates – ‘is what was left behind when the rich people left Yonder.’

He glanced to a great, hulking shape beneath a white sheet. ‘And that?’

The girl traipsed over to it, drawing it off to expose a well-made, untested ballista mounted on wheels, its string drawn and bolt loaded. ‘They bought it when fears about Karnerian and Sainite incursions were high.’ As if she suddenly remembered who she was talking to, she tensed, resting a hand on the siege weapon’s launching lever. ‘I know how to use it, too.’

Hers was the look of childish defiance, the urge to run suppressed because someone had once told her that running was for cowards. It was familiar. He fought the urge to smile. He fought the urge to point out that the ballista was pointing at least ten feet to the right of him.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said.

‘And I’m sure you’re telling the truth,’ she replied snidely. ‘Because, as we all know, only reasonable hairless freaks chase young girls through alleys with knives, screaming like lunatics.’

‘I left the knife in the house,’ he said. ‘My house.’

‘Not fair,’ she snapped back. ‘Squatters can’t claim the houses. It’s a rule.’

‘I’m not a squatter. I used to live there.’

‘Liar.’

‘What?’

‘If you used to live there, you’d be a Tohana man. If you were a Tohana man, you’d be like me.’ She tapped her dark-skinned brow. ‘I’m not quite convinced that you aren’t some kind of shaved ape.’

‘I could have been from another nation,’ he pointed out.

‘If you were, you’d have been rich and you wouldn’t live in a little shack.’ She eyed him carefully. ‘So … who are you?’

‘There is no good answer to that.’

‘Then give me a bad one.’

He glanced from her to the pool. ‘I lived here with my family once. They’re dead now.’

‘That’s not a bad answer,’ she replied. ‘Not a good one, either. Lots of people have dead families. That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.’

He knew he shouldn’t answer. What would be the point? When the Father was freed, people would die. That was inevitable. How could he possibly tell her this? There was no need for him to even look at her, he knew. He didn’t have to kill her or anything similar. All he need do was open the vial, pour the Milk into the water, free the Father. It didn’t even need to be poured – he could just hurl the whole thing in and the objective would be achieved.

Change would come.

People would die.

He had tried to bite back his memories, to quash the pain that welled up inside him. He had served the Prophet to achieve oblivion, as the rest of the blessed had. And yet, gazing upon the girl roused memory in him, nurturing instincts that he had not felt since he sat beside a small cot and told stories.

Chief among these was the instinct to lie.

‘I’m here to help,’ he said.

‘Help?’

‘This city was my home once. I raised a child here. I want to help it return to its former glory.’

‘Glory?’ She raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘Prosperity?’

‘Eh …’

‘Stability, then,’ he said. ‘I’m going to change this city.’

‘How?’

He smiled at her. ‘I’ll start with the people.’

She stared at him for a moment, and as he gazed upon her expression, he knew an instinctual fear. Doubt. It was painted across her unwashed face in premature wrinkles and sunburned skin. It was the expression of someone who had heard promises before and knew, in whatever graveyard inside of her that innocence went to die, that some lies, no matter how nurturing, were simply lies.

He had seen that expression only once before. He remembered it well.

And then, her face nearly split apart with her grin.

‘That’s pretty stupid,’ she said. ‘I like it. I don’t believe it, but I like it.’

‘Now, why wouldn’t you believe it?’ He grinned back. ‘If a shaven monkey can sneak into a temple unseen, why wouldn’t he be able to change people?’

‘Because everyone tells the same story. I’m too old to believe it now.’

‘How old?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Kasla,’ she said, smiling. ‘What’s yours?’

He opened his mouth to speak, and the moment he did, her grin vanished, devoured by the expression of fear and panic that swallowed her face. He quirked a brow at her as she turned and fled, scampering behind a pillar and disappearing into the shadows of the temple. He was about to call after her when he heard the voice.

‘I’m not going to ask how you got in.’

He turned and saw the priest, portly, moustached and clad in fraying robes. The man eased the door shut behind him, making a point of patting the lock carefully. He turned to face the Mouth, his dark face dire.

‘I’m not going to ask who you were talking to,’ he said, taking a step forward. ‘Nor will I inquire what you’re doing here. I already know that.’ A hand slipped inside his robe. ‘All I wish to know is how a servant of Ulbecetonth thought he could walk in my city—’

His hand came out, clenching a chain from which a symbol dangled: a gauntlet clenching thirteen obsidian arrows. Mesri held it before him like a lantern, regarding the Mouth evenly.

‘—without a member of the House knowing.’

The Mouth tensed, precariously aware of his position by the pool. He glanced down, all too aware of the vial clenched in his hand. He looked back to Mesri, painfully aware that he hadn’t thrown it in yet.

‘How much else do you know?’ he whispered.

‘Only what you do,’ Mesri replied. ‘We both know what’s imprisoned beneath this city. We both know you’re carrying the key to that abomination’s release.’

‘The Father is—’

‘An abomination,’ Mesri insisted. ‘A beast that lives only to kill, only to destroy in the name of a cause that exists only to do more of the same. We both know that if he is released, that’s all we’ll see. Death. Destruction.’ He stared at the Mouth intently. ‘And yet … we both know you’ve had opportunities in abundance to do so. And we both know you haven’t.

‘This is where my knowledge ends,’ Mesri said. ‘Why?’

‘Just …’ The Mouth hesitated, cursing himself for it. ‘I’m just taking my time, making certain that when the change comes, when the Father is freed, he—’