Over a week before, Ronnie had finished creating a book.
In its form it was nothing extraordinary. Mere strips of wood bound together by two string loops. When held, the wooden pages had a tendency to slide away from their partners, leading to pages falling from the reader’s hands, which often left the first and final pages of the tale mixed with the others and unclear. They did clack together pleasantly, though. Whether the result of the material – some variant of oak, perhaps – or the ink itself – likely just pounded charcoal mixed with water – the giant’s impeccable calligraphy was occasionally smeared across itself, leaving certain segments borderline illegible.
But its contents were surreal. And though the Strain could’ve presented it as-is, or used the stiff, grating runic voice-box to orate for them, they became determined to have someone else read it out-loud; in their own voice.
Prospects were slim for Ronnie. Would-be readers would have to be capable of reading, which narrowed the giant’s criteria significantly. Though Bhan’s literacy wasn’t great – he’d often take dozens of minutes to decipher a single missive – he was the natural first-choice: as a Face, his performative and memorisation skills were leagues above anyone else in the caverns. But the Strain tended to malfunction around Bhan, and every opportunity to ask left them flushed and glancing everywhere except at him.
Given the amount of time they spent together, Taja was the next choice. He outright refused, citing his lacking skills. After that was the twins, who had the best reading abilities excepting Head Maleen, who was far too busy to be asked. While both were willing, in their initial practices each was so nervous – Sash constantly fumbled lines and Dash stared into space in mute horror – that Ronnie eventually freed them from the duty. Kit couldn’t decipher anything longer than four letters. Erin and the other Shrikebloods simply weren’t an option.
It was when Ronnie was gazing at Bhan, inhaling deep breaths as they thumbed their book, that Blake stumbled along and casually asked what they held. When the Strain explained via several arduous uses of their bloodtech speaking box, he was instantly enamoured.
Despite his near total illiteracy and Ronnie’s communication being restricted to an unintuitive device that could speak only one syllable at a time, Ronnie somehow managed to teach him the words. The reading was held in the dead of night, in a small cavern off the side of the central shaft. Blake’s voice was punctuated by the echo of raindrops being obliterated at the end of their long fall.
It was called a Barnyard Epic. It went as follows:
Twixt hills and holes there lay a space
Layered in fields of dreary brown,
Where radiant creatures interfaced
With blackened skies that bore them down.
That barren place concealed a barn
Constantly under threat of raze
Brave Hound patrolled its greatest charge:
The beasts that rest beneath its gaze.
Chickens, the Pups, Possum, Donkey;
Bovine, Piglet, Lioness, Ewe;
When earth place them on their knees,
Circumstance brings them to you.
Though Hound protects it all these years,
Sickness man’fest their foremost fears.
Blake had paused at this spot, face growing increasingly pale the longer the words evaded him. Ronnie held aloft their wooden pages, but when they sparked no insight in the young man’s eyes the Strain mimed chewing cud. He shot a quick smile of gratitude to the giant before continuing.
“Dog is down!” the Cow did whine,
For they found Hound stilled within the night,
And Cow did panic at the sight
Because they relied on Dog’s watchful sight.
“Ronnie wanted to keep switching Cow and Bull for its, even though they’re supposed t’be the same character,” Blake had whispered, hand raised in mock secrecy. “Bloody confusin’, and I told ‘em so. So big an’ lopsided’s lettin’ me use just ‘Cow’.”
Ronnie glared at the smaller person.
“Yeesh,” he stated. “Can’t- “
The giant whacked on the back of the head.
“Canny my arse,” he muttered.
Ronnie raised a threatening hand, and he’d continued.
But Cow was canny; silent but wry,
They knew the Donkey was quite wise.
And found him preaching by the plough,
To hordes of chickens near their house.
Blake had barely prevented himself from snorting at the next two words.
“Wise Ass,” Cow signed, “our Dog is sick!
“His body slumbers when we need him fit!”
And Donkey did join, though shaking his head:
“The weary should rest lest they end up dead.”
They journeyed down deep, where Possum climbed
Knew kinder answers marsupial liked,
And found him hanging from the tree
Bandying words with a lorikeet.
“Faithful Cuscus,” Ass did say, “our Dog is sick!”
“His spirit falters so we must protect!”
And Possum did say, raising his head:
“I’ll ride along to restore his strength!”
Blake had chuckled lightly, forcing Ronnie to whack him on the arm and goad him back on-target.
They journeyed to Pig; stubborn but kind,
Always saved food for the hungry to find,
Pair found him wandering round the yard
Awaiting the dealing of life’s cards.
“Austere Pig,” Possum cried, “our Dog is sick!”
“His body slumbers when I’d want him fit!”
And Piglet did groan, and ready his legs:
“I guess I’ll have to see him fed.”
Group ambled onwards for Pride Rock,
Where mighty Lion prowled around,
Clamping growls on filed fangs,
Blunted to save world from her wrath.
“Guarded Lioness,” Pig presides,
“Hound lays stilled by force of night.”
And Lion hauled her body up,
Said, “I will guard what Dog cannot.”
Ronnie leaned on their overdeveloped arm, carefully staring.
Not at Blake.
They travelled to roost, amidst the chooks,
Where Sheep did reign in her little nook;
Presiding over strange decrees
To duck the hands of humanity.
“Beautiful Sheep,” Lioness sung,
“I adore you; yer hair o’ flamin’ red an’- “
Once more, Ronnie had delivered a truly immense wallop to Blake’s back, which sent him rolling head-over-heels for a single revolution before he was quickly stopped. The young man lay there, trying to simultaneously chuckle and rub the spot in the middle of his back where he’d been pounded and failed at both tasks.
The Strain’s glare eventually softened, and they helped Blake back into a seated position.
“Sorry,” the pock-marked young man said. “Thought it’d be funny. I don’t usually make this many jokes.”
Ronnie began to sign something, but Blake needed no translation.
“I’ll stop,” he said. “This’s a serious thing, an’ I think it’s great.”
The giant gave a halting nod.
“Alright. Let’s wind it back a bit.”
“Regal Sheep,” the Lioness yowls,
“We need yer help to carry Dog round.”
And Sheep did rise to sway hen’s way,
“We’ll shelter our Dog from pouring rain.”
Finally group arrived at home:
The barn beneath their skyward dome.
Within they found the twofold Pups,
That searched for Hound to redeem their stop.
“Brave Pups,” the crowd did howl,
“Join us in helping Hound rest now.”
And Pups sprang upright valiantly,
Said, “We’ll wait for his health!”
Twixt hills and holes there lay a space
Layered in fields of dreary brown,
Where radiant creatures interfaced
With blackened skies that bore them down.
That barren place concealed a barn
Constantly under threat of raze
Brave Hound patrolled its greatest charge:
The beasts that rest beneath its gaze.
Chickens, the Pups, Possum, Donkey;
Bovine, Piglet, Lioness, Ewe;
When earth place them on their knees,
Circumstance brings them to you.
Though Hound protects it all these years,
They’ll protect it ‘til he heals.
Blake had released a long breath, then looked to Ronnie. The Strain’s gaze was piercing. Their blue eyes raised as if in supplication. Weeks spent upon a plea that was far too earnest to be comfortable. Though the giant did not demand an answer, it seemed as if one was needed. Yet within all the layers of possibility that existed within words, none seemed equal to the task.
Both Blake and Ronnie missed Erin walking in from the shaft behind them. The Shrikeblood had listened to the tale in its entirety, from front-to-back, her visage hidden by the bends of the cave. When she entered, her expression was carefully flattened.
“That was a good story,” she began.
The pair turned. Ronnie’s eyes were wide.
“Erin,” Blake sighed, “leave it. It’s a kind thing they’ve- “
“Kind, yes.” At midnight, even the thin light from the shaft behind had fled. To the pair, Erin’s clenched jaw was imperceptible. “Kind. But not true.”
A scowl fought its way across Ronnie’s face as the giant brought themselves to their full height.
Normally, even Erin would’ve been uneasy at the giant’s sheer size and obvious physical power – though she would hide her trepidation admirably. But some hateful force beating within her guided her focus elsewhere. “Cows are not canny. Pups not brave; Donkeys unwise and possums…” The Shrikeblood’s already vice-like jaw tightened further. “Possums should direct their faith elsewhere.”
Blake’s voice was pained. “Why’re you doin’ this?”
“Some things were carved long before any of us existed,” Erin spat. “Some things don’t change. So aim your ambitions elsewhere.”
The large woman turned on her heel and departed, having stated what she had need to. Blake stared after her for a few moments, then spent some time muttering reassurances to Ronnie. But, eventually, he too departed. As if fleeing some unseen miasma.
The Strain had slumped to the floor and stared upwards, as if trying to bore their gaze through earth and sky to reach whatever secrets the firmament held. But their attempts didn’t seem to yield anything. Ronnie did not sleep, that night. They did not mention their story again.
----------------------------------------
Away from the others, Pat began to die. Whatever illness that wracked him with seizures had finally breached the barrier into something vital. The feeble mortality that surrounded all dogs had cornered him, and Pat knew it. By his own design, the hound was entirely alone; unseen by family or friend. Judging by the ebbing of his lifeforce, he had around a day to live before sickness collapsed his body.
The old hunting hound’s body weighed almost nothing. Weeks of a dead appetite had left him emaciated. A few short whines of protest escaped him before he surrendered entirely. Out of all the forces on earth, none could save him.
…Almost none.
“Good boy.”
“Brave boy, Pat.”
“Shh. Shh.”
Out of curiosity or concern, Ronnie had followed. With the others busy mourning with Taja, the Strain had been the only one retaining enough composure to point their eyes outwards. They had ducked and slid between trunks and low-hanging branches placed in anticipation for far smaller creatures. They had found themself scarcely fifty paces away. They saw Pat being carried away.
Ronnie froze, then fumbled in their pocket for their speaking box, only to find it empty – likely left in their haste to find Taja. With admirable alacrity the giant then retrieved several pebbles from the ground and began hurling them in the direction of the others. When their stock was depleted, they retrieved a fallen branch, leaned it against a mossy boulder, and stomped it to produce a resounding crack that had birds leaping for the sky. The giant paused and listened. Their eyes were fixed on the direction they had entered from, where the barely audible sobs of those gathered remained.
There was no sign anyone had heard, and Pat was nearly out of eyeshot.
Ronnie pawed at the runeslate tied to their good arm with their underdeveloped one, but could not reach it. Nothing would occur if they could. Slowly, the Strain’s arms fell to their side. Their childish face abruptly came to a standstill. All that awaited their attempts were silence and rain. For Ronnie hadn’t the words to fill it.
Instead of venturing back to inform the others and losing what little control of the situation they had, Ronnie took a feeble step forward and followed.
Through the overgrown woods. Over thin, burbling streams grown fat with rainwater. Through glades studded with wildflowers. Between a humble ravine twixt two hills and the mud gathered at its bottom. Through rain. Over mud so thick every step was a fight to retrieve their feet. Through a river overflowing into the lands around, forcing them to ford water broken by the tops of trees. Up a hill. Through a horde of ghostly shatterings ambling across the landscape according to an ancient design. Up another hill. Up flowing inclines too rocky to support vegetation – likely massive amounts of earth overturned by a god centuries ago. Up.
Ronnie followed until they reached the small mountain’s peak, and bent over at the waist, panting.
Their fingers flexed weakly: ‘Explain.’
Wind and rain scratched at them, yet even through the veil of raindrops the view was excellent. The mountain Pat and Ronnie waited atop burst from a desert of green, with each mottled jade grain a water-soaked leaf. Occasionally, the sands cracked to reveal the forest floor beneath: pooling with stagnant water spat from the sky. The vegetation stretched until its termination just before the horizon under the hands of Albright lumberjacks. There, the monarch’s castle squatted: a tangled shrub of corridors built from a patchwork of whatever types of stone their masons on-hand, whether slate or shale or granite. A short place clawing its way to the end of the sky, one fingernail at a time.
Ahead, the jade earth was consumed by a muddied red. The space between those colours rippled outwards before flinching back inwards, reflecting whatever arcane formula determined the Heartland’s rabid curvature. A few rare shrubs clung to the transitory space twixt green and red. In the hail of rain it seemed a thin strip of Wastes, transported from the distant south to near the top of the continent.
On the crimson side, speartrees began pushing from the ground. Besides the pale trunks and ubiquitous heartwoods that fought to pierce one another through their tangled branches, fungi coloured every variant of red sprouted beneath – so many they seemed another kind of grass. They spread across the rolling Heartlands and the rivets torn in it. Several ghosts wandered the land – whether green or red – entirely detached from their surroundings. One walked into the slope of a crimson hill and did not reemerge.
And eventually, where the crimson distance reunited with its jade counterpart, sight reached a bloom of empurpled mist. Two bedraggled groups waited outside of it.
Ronnie’s eyes followed a finger there. The Strain stiffened.
‘Joke/Humour,’ their hand indicated hopefully.
“The dog needs help.”
“It’s the only way.”
“Don’t follow.”
The giant shook their head mutely, then gave a mock snort. ‘Leave,’ ‘You,’ ‘Think,’ ‘Question.’
“It wouldn’t be abandonment.”
“No one could blame you.”
“Make the wise choice.”
Ronnie did not make the wise choice. They asked if it would be better for them to carry Pat, and when denied steadied their heaving breath and straightened.
In the absence of a deadline, the ideal route traced the border zone between the Heartlands and greener nature, thus circumnavigating an obstacle course of sharpened plants thirsting for blood. But walking as the crow flies would save several hours, and hours were in short supply. So the direct route was the one Ronnie followed.
The journey down was far more treacherous than the way up. The wind’s direction meant that this side bore the brunt of the rain, and it was only growing heavier. Above, clouds grew more darkly insensate at the hubris of those beneath and hurled heavier showers upon them. As Ronnie skidded down the lichen-strewn rocks, good arm turning from one side to the other to maintain balance while its feeble partner clung to their torso, the giant frequently threw themself backwards onto the stone. A hard landing, but always better than falling forward.
As the rocks of the sudden mountain fell to sensible soil once more, the sky redoubled its efforts. Rain pelted against flesh with the impact of a contingent of suicidal bees and moving against the wind soon required Ronnie to physically lean into it, lest they lose their footing. Pat could be sheltered from it somewhat, but the sheer force of it ate away at what little heat his life had remaining. Tempest fought against its demise with one last burst of fury.
Descending back beneath the greater canopy proved a shallow relief, for the stretch of empty land waited. The walk was just long enough to allow Ronnie to begin wringing the water from the bottom of their tunic, and then they followed out into the rain once more. A miserable, cloyingly wet heat clung to skin as they slogged in wet clothes across the place. The wisdom of animals left the place barren. Then they stepped past a long ivory spike, into the Heartlands. Home, for Ronnie – as much as an ever-shifting land can be.
Every Aching left the Heartlands unrecognisable. The mushrooms that blanketed the pink land had no precedent; if a mind could reach back through time and examine every species of fungus that ever stretched itself through soil, they would never find a match. After each Aching was a time of plenty, but also death. Heartlanders died in droves to poisonous unknown forage and though long experience taught them ways of better investigating their homeland’s fruits, little was ever certain except speartrees.
It didn’t take any great insight to understand that these mushrooms were lethal. At a distance, the land’s small bumps had seemed one of the place’s many idiosyncrasies. Up-close, they were revealed to be fungus-covered corpses.
Standing at the edge of the Heartlands, Ronnie’s finger alone found three bodies out of the fifteen within sight. Most were animals: birds, tree-climbing rodents, a deer and other such herbivores. There was even a monster – a large feline that was either a weak Oxblood or a lucky Strain – its features mostly concealed by the thick pink caps covering its head. No scent of rot was perceptible: either the rain had beaten the smell down or the fungus sprouting from each body consumed the odour before it could rise.
A shattering of air flitted around the burial mounds, idly chewing at grass that no longer existed. It was unclear whether its future self slept here, amongst the dead stretching as far as the eye could see. A graveyard interred by nature.
‘We,’ ‘Go,’ ‘Question,’ the giant signed.
Either the mushrooms only murdered upon consumption or they did so simply by leaking miasma into the air around them. Evidence pointed to the former: the dead were either herbivores or carrion-eaters, and various small bugs still marched beneath the mushroom caps without pause. But mere guesses weren’t enough to risk Ronnie and Pat’s fate.
The mushrooms tasted like a fistful of dirt mixed with roach eggs.
Ronnie made an expression that would’ve been accompanied by a disbelieving laugh on any other, then leapt into action. Their fist fell like a sledgehammer, and their arm squeezed like a vice yet both failed to dislodge the mushrooms from a crowd of gnashing teeth. Swallowing was difficult – the deliberate abandonment of all sensibilities – but an exertion of will sent them down easily.
A digestive system was spun from recollection, forming as the mushrooms fell. Within it, a hollow reflection of consumption took place. Several effects arose from it.
“Urgh.”
“That’s poison alright.”
“It doesn’t seem to be the kind that outright kills.”
Ronnie sneered, then delivered another punch.
A yawn resounded – more out of habit that anything else. Strange. Physical fatigue was a foreign thing, now.
“Not outright lethal. Some kind of artificial torpor?”
“Puts you t’sleep.”
“Anesthetises you. Then starvation sets in.”
Safe to walk over, at least. Anyone left debilitated could be carried out. It might’ve even been kinder to make Pat eat one – give him a brief reprieve from his sickness – had it not carried the risk of outright killing him in his feeble state. The dog didn’t have much time as-is.
Feet fell, compacting the fungus they stepped upon into a slimy paste, transforming the already damp ground into treacherous footing. A sparse scattering of heartwoods climbed from the ground, attempting to tangle their dark branches into the sky, but already they seemed sickly. An occasional thin stalk bent over itself in an attempt to hold a heavy fruit aloft. Its trunk seemed like one long tendon. The Heartlands stretched onwards beneath a bombardment of rain and wind, bizarre and alien and ever-shifting; forsaking the bodies it left scattered behind.
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As Ronnie passed one small, lightly-covered lump, they paused and shifted slightly to the side. After lifting the rim of their soaked tunic to cover their mouth and nose, they ponderously lowered themself into a squat. Before falling, it had been a bird – feathered red with black speckles to better hide in the Heartlands.
Despite the fungus growing through its wings, the creature’s tiny chest still rose and fell.
Ronnie gagged. Then they straightened and raised their boot to crush it.
The descent was halted. That was not the way. Not the way for it. It would fade and it would rot. Not the way to respect it. But if left, it would rot and fade. Not the way to save it. It would vanish like all the others. No. No. No.
The thing that was me bent down and with quaking limbs severed the elaborate bonds tying bird to fungus and fungus to ground, carefully trimming the caps off its feathers but the mushrooms had grown into it and like Pat, it was too late so the bird joined the hound in ever-shifting arms rippling with eyes and tendons and it hunched over them to shield them from the rain and heat in the chill of its body and continued onwards, onwards, onwards; over the mushrooms and around the remnants of hateful speartrees and the dead too blind or foolish to flee and…
Ronnie drew closer, hesitantly. ‘You,’ ‘Satisfactory,’ ‘Question.’
The peal of rain was the only reply.
Ronnie followed over the mushrooms. Through the furious storm’s feckless rebuke of the earth. Through the stifling heat that set bodies sweating despite the wet. Over bodies that could no longer sweat. Around speartrees and the clawing nails of heartwood branches. Through puddles mingling with pink earth to form mud resembling putrefied flesh. Through this brief slice of the Heartlands, Ronnie followed.
The purple mist expanded with every step. Eventually, it dominated the horizon, so thick and tall it seemed to eat the clouds and the rain that fell from it. A small stream trailed from within it. Nothing could be seen within beyond the first few steps.
Two equally bedraggled groups waited outside.
The first bore three familiar faces: the three Northern representatives from Head Maleen’s meeting – Kara Korla, Lonwo Illico, and Khoe Andoras – arguing amongst themselves. The Illican and Andorish men were flanked by two mortal warriors each, who stared with bloodshot eyes at one another. The Korlean woman had only one Lizardblooded guard, whose frantic vigilance extended both to the men in front of her and the second group at their backs.
The other group was larger, but wore stone or bronze weapons to the nobles’ iron. Their fellowship contained mostly men with a few rugged women, some of whom wore shafts of speartree bound together as a kind of flexible yet uncomfortable armour. Every arm was covered in long, straight scars – remnants of blood-sacrifice to the dirt – a sure indication they were Heartlanders. Some zealously sharpened their weapons or continually checked and rechecked their straps, while others wore a familiar tightness around the lines of their face: mournful acceptance.
Neither displayed any open hostility to the other, but though few would find the noble’s muttering perceptible beneath the deluge, their exchange was growing increasingly ferocious.
“…cowards and fools,” the Korlean diplomat spat, narrow eyes darting between the men. “One chance for Owlblood before war, and you squander?”
The stocky Illican shook his head. “Death helps none.”
“Puah, it not Enn. We sneak, nick a wing, then flee; it not notice. Even just sit in mist for hour. Or can Illico turn down Owlblood so easy?” Her voice cracked with the force of a whip. “House Illico grown fat, eh? Give Baylar a nice feast!”
“Other Houses eat Baylar first,” Lonwo dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Albright make such thing certain.”
A shaken head from the thin Andorish man silenced both. “Not if king dead.”
“Eyah,” Kara agreed.
There was a shout from the Illican as he threw up his hands. “More reason to live! Who will take over from Head if you corpse or Blooded, Kara?”
A scoff emerged from the woman in question. “My brothers, fool. We here because we mean as much as salt-snow. We die – who cares? Not I. But we bring Godsblood back home in veins…”
“All who enter die. Our death a certainty if we go.” Khoe’s voice was quiet. “You know this.”
“Ah, but a chance for strong Owlblood worth a few deaths, hmm? How many Owlsmith your House have? One? Two?”
The two men remained silent.
“There no fight without steel; no steel without Owlblood; no Owlblood without us going in today.”
There was a long pause as the stout Illican shifted. “…Abandon humanity?” Lonwo asked quietly. “Corrupt our nobility? Our blood?”
“Abandon humanity or abandon responsibility,” Kara retorted. “And Godsblood can be removed.”
“Not easily. Not without damage. And place life with such men?” The Illican’s rebuke had lost its bite. “Why not wait; gird ourself with warriors?”
“We on Albright territory; Owl’s blood their bounty,” remarked the Andorish. “No time. The mercenaries are here for same reason. Owl has blood enough for all. And any betrayal in there, all lose their bounty and all die.”
“Eyah,” Kara agreed. “That trust, if ever any exists.”
One final sigh emerged from the Illican before he turned to his guards and shot them a brief nod. When they responded with a crisp salute, he drew in a breath. “Eyah, mercenaries!” His call rung out towards the other group, directed at a shrivelled woman whose skin had more in common with leather than flesh, who sucked on some kind of nut nestled in her cheek. She must have been their leader. “We agree to work…”
His gaze followed the gazes of the other god-hunting group. To Ronnie and Pat and the bird and their surroundings.
“Another ghost?” asked the mercenary leader. Her cheeks bulged with a small nut she sucked. “Whole piles o’ ‘em round here, t’be sure. Region’s in sore need o’ a Face.
“No ghost,” Lonwo breathed. “Vulture.”
“…The new god?”
Wary of opening his mouth, the Illican simply nodded.
“Damn it all,” the woman hissed between her few remaining teeth, gaze frozen. “Th’ blood’s it lookin’ at?”
“Us.”
She released a short laugh – less of humour and more to simply exhale. “S’got so many eyes it could be watchin’ everythin’.”
“Probably is.”
“If we run, s’it gonna chase us?”
Behind him, the other Heartlanders were already beginning to slowly back away. The leader was oblivious.
“Strain!” called the Andorish. He had been the only one to notice Ronnie’s less noticeable frame. “Is it dangerous?”
The giant made no moments, until the fact the question had been directed at them registered. They carefully raised a palm and swayed it side-to-side, then made several discrete gestures.
The nobles exchanged a glance while the Heartlander stared in mute disbelief. Behind them, the forms of her retreating companions were forced in the only direction they could go to escape – through the purple mist. Their bodies were quickly consumed by it.
“Blood’s that mean?” the mercenary leader whispered.
Kara’s reply was equally quiet. “Silent-word,” she responded. “But I understand nothing.”
“Lady, if I could…” The noble’s Lizardblooded guard placed herself between her charge and the threat. “Sign again?”
Ronnie repeated the motions.
The Blooded’s mouth slowly traced the sounds. Everyone’s eyes flickered between her and what lay ahead of them. The Illican opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it.
“Why it carry dog?” one of Lonwo’s guards muttered.
“Quiet,” he hissed. “Now.”
Eventually, the Lizardblood produced a translation. “Dangerous… If provoked, I believe?”
“‘Cause I was plannin’ on annoyin’ it.” The Heartlander ejected a wad of spittle reddened by the nut she sucked onto the ground
“Stop it,” the Korlean hissed disbelievingly. “Leave its path.”
“Now hold on a moment, fancy pants,” the mercenary quietly drawled. “If it’s goin’ this way, an’ it ain’t gonna kill us, why not tag along? God’s ain’t meant t’hurt other gods. We’re prob’bly gon’ die anyway. Ain’t much t’lose.”
“That is a bad idea.”
“You should leave.”
“The Owl’s whims are nothing to trust.”
The woman stumbled backwards. “By all that’s good ‘n green,” she breathed. “It speaks? What’d it say?”
“Some variety of ‘you fools’,” Lonwo muttered.
“If you…” Khoe paused to work saliva through his mouth. “…Spare us, then we going. Will you allow us the shelter of your back?”
Ronnie stood behind, glancing between the nine remaining individuals and elsewhere.
“Ronnie.”
“Stay.”
“And.”
“Do.”
“Not.”
“Enter.”
“This.”
“Place.”
For the vast majority who entered the Owl’s mists would die, and no amount of numbers, martial prowess or strategy could weigh the dice in their favour. But even if they survived, they would depart as weak Owlbloods – unless they were already Blooded. The closer they were to the centre, the more concentrated their divinity would become. And if they managed to bottle a drop of Yoot’s blood, they would hold enough divinity for dozens of Owlbloods. Beyond that, little was known.
If Ronnie entered, they would never depart or they would depart forever marked.
The would-be god hunters exchanged a glance. Each word occupied the same instant; none were comprehensible. Their shifting exposed the old mercenary to her sudden dearth of companions, at which point she attempted to sneer but succeeded only in looking tired.
“Alright. Rest o’ my gang o’ cowards jus’ ran.” She sucked furiously on the seed. “Fools. One god’s too spooky for ‘em, so they run t’another. We better catch up soon.”
They would die in the mist if nothing protected them. They would likely still die if some thing did. But it was better than nothing.
Pat was brought towards the mist. Each of the divinity seekers turned to follow. As did Ronnie.
Where else could they go?
----------------------------------------
Empurpled fog suffused the pilgrims’ bodies. Immediately, things began to slip.
The apple of Lonwo’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, yet though his mouth moved the words emanating from them came as if screamed from the other side of the horizon. Several others tilted their head in incomprehension. Yet despite being further away from him than the others, Kara’s Lizardblooded guard immediately staggered, face a rictus of pain. Blood leaked from her ears, then dripped off their lobes to slouch to the muddied earth.
Eyes flickering between Lonwo and the Blooded, the old Heartlander placed a finger across her lips. As she did so, her head tilted, but though her face moved the seed she sucked on did not. Nailed to the air, it ripped through her cheek in a red gleam then drifted away like pollen on a breeze. The others watched it disappear into the mist above.
Ronnie’s gaze, along with the others, was pointed towards the exit. Though the Lizardblooded guard glared significantly at her Korlean master, it was one of the Andorish who gripped his charge – Khoe – by the arm and dragged him back the way they came, though his partner embedded his feet firmly within the group. Lonwo longingly gazed after the two that had left.
But the rest continued walking.
For a time, the mist was impenetrable. All that accompanied the pilgrims were a few paces of muddied earth before it faded into nothing. Reality operated more or less consistently, but at times this pattern would be broken entirely. Sound often carried strangely; sometimes a scream would sound as if next to everyone yet other times footsteps seemed to vanish without mention, as if the sight of boots sinking into mud were somehow divorced from greater reality. There was an incident where Kara sunk, without prompting, neck-deep into the mud and had to be pulled from it by Ronnie. The rain variably fell like feathers, or lightning, or not at all.
Then without warning, one of Lonwo’s guards dropped. His body seized upon the dirt, lifeforce quivering like a fish thrown upon land.
First, the dying man’s skin was flayed from him, leaving muscle, sinew, tendons and fat to bear the rain falling upon it. Those pieces were separated from the body with a surgeon’s finesse. Next, came his organs; all drifting upwards with the exception of the Illican’s heart and brain. Like the rest of the pieces stripped away, his eyes hung in the air for several long seconds. Then piece-by-piece transformed into mist.
The bones were next, with the exception of a strange, floppy line that had been once dwelled within the spine. Upon their departure the man was no longer recognisable as human, but a pile of beating strings that seemed to have risen wholesale from the earth. Finally, the capillaries and other strings that once bound the flesh and heart and brain to the rest of the body vanished into purple mist, leaving nothing but blood.
The others stared at him. Kara shrieked mutely, while others simply paled and shivered. The Heartlander whirled, trying to see every corner of the mist at once. Ronnie vomited. They had just watched a living being unravel before their eyes. Reduced to less than a scream; a whisper. One of many that formed the fog around them.
They had too few eyes to notice the single dark spot that sat in the distance, somehow perceptible behind the fog. Its gaze was like a bolt to the head. Its lifeforce was an ocean beyond any other entity in leagues, barring two. Then it was gone.
The sacrilege was incomprehensible.
They should have been left outside. Rendered unconscious. If needed. Even if the application of force lacked control. Even if it allowed the mushrooms to crawl past the Heartlands. Into them. Should have. In too far, now; in too far. What could be done? How could-
Weakly, Pat’s tongue brushed against shivering flesh. He blinked upwards. Fur shivered as his lifeforce seeped closer to death.
They did not leave, and were not made to. Instead, they continued onwards, feet pressing mutely against the ground.
All of a sudden, the mist receded. In its wake lay a familiar landscape made completely and utterly foreign by the way it had split apart. A set of smoothly rolling hills awaited the pilgrims, cut through by the veins of a river-system that grew fatter with each drop of rain. Green grass over soil and crimson mushrooms over earth mingled together. Speartrees thrust beside verdant green shrubs. Black, gnarled heartwoods sprouted leaves of jade. Great oaks crenulated with wrinkled bark leaked red sap from gouges, and from within them emerged great ivory spikes. The vegetation of two parallel places had begun to bleed together.
Though fewer, its creatures did as well. The feathers of a bird were blended with the body of a mountain lion, leaving spindly avian legs broken under its form. It writhed between blades of crimson and olive, cuts opening to soak uselessly into soil that did not desire blood. The lion’s head hung, glassy-eyed. But a small lump sprouting from its back screeched: the head of an eagle. A possum with far too many legs repeatedly tried and failed to climb a tree. A rat conjoined at the back with another dragged its dead partner along. One scaled elk lay lifeless on the dirt, gills motionless. A mangy dog and its conjoined monster flailed, teeth flashing as they bit into one another over and over again. Each flash of teeth slashed more of their combined blood onto the earth. A tiny ant beneath the pilgrim’s feet fumbled around on the legs of a beetle. Children of earth and sky bound together dispassionately.
The Heartlanders that had fled fumbled across the landscape. What had once been fifteen had been reduced to six, with no indication of where their companions were. Three pairs of legs stumbled together, as if tied by a knot. But there was no knot; there was only the melding of flesh. And at their panicked jostling, their skin was pressed further together, and where they touched their bodies sunk into one another, leaving trails of blood. Their eyes were wide; filled with a dreadful comprehension that none of the other merged creatures could possess. Their terrified screams sounded as no animal ever should. For they were completely and utterly silent.
The three other Heartlanders circled around their melded peers, raising bronze weaponry to strike only to flinch back as the merged’s dreadful flailing brought their skin perilously close to the others. It was only when one of the distorted trio collapsed from shock that the delineated could finally step forward and kill the trio.
Ronnie and the blood-seekers shuffled further away from one another. Yet when the giant’s eyes found Pat and the bird, they begun to sign.
‘Dog,’ ‘Bird,’ ‘Safe,’ ‘Separate,’ ‘God/Divine,’ ‘Flesh/Meat,’ ‘Question.’
The dog and the bird did remain distinct, despite their bodies pressed against dark. Warbling. Twisting-
Pat’s tongue darted out once more, licking.
They seemed fine to touch, so long as they remained isolated from others and each other. A darker divinity than which suffused the mist shielded them.
Whatever shift in reality that pressed things together had only arisen as the group had forged deeper into the mist. Otherwise, the Strain would have lost their arm in Kara when lifting the Korlean from the mud. Fortunate, it some ways, but it boded poorly. They would only be going further.
This was communicated through a series of signs.
Ronnie bobbed their head, then extended their good arm to sway across the mist-shrouded land, as if dowsing for some answer. The giant’s query was answered with a finger towards what lay at the centre of it all.
It was almost visible. Almost. At that moment, all it appeared to be was a deformed, mangled darkening of the purple mist.
The seven remaining pilgrims exchanged glances. The Korlean and Illican guard glared meaningfully at Lonwo and Kara. The Andorish one simply began carefully shuffling down the hill. The Heartlander, after making a motion that might’ve been a snort, followed.
The Strain stared at their mismatched hands, then looked out at the malformed landscape. They gave a tight smile, then followed.
A pack of ghosts loped across the landscape purposefully – whole in form if not substance – then vanished into the purple fog. Besides the pilgrims, the rain and the rivers, they were the only thing that seemed to move – and they didn’t truly move, did they? They never would.
The seekers took a wide berth around anything that looked significant. The trees and animals were avoided. They emitted a kind of foul, unnatural beauty – the sort that could only be found in this place. Entirely unique. So though some of the pilgrims looked tempted to kill them, they were left to struggle and make sense of their altered forms.
Those of the Heartlanders that remained looked to their leader, then walked past her – back the way they came. The mercenary directed a steady gaze towards their retreating spines, then looked at the corpse/s they had left behind. A thick pool of blood spread beneath them; their eyes frozen in a terror unique to them. Then she looked ahead once more.
The remaining Andorish did not. He froze for a moment, then, without meeting their eyes, gave the rest of the pilgrims a single nod. After that, he turned on his heel to follow the Heartlanders. Lonwo shot Kara a hopeful glance, but when her visage remained resolute sighed mutely. Six remained to walk onwards.
Ronnie stared after them expressionlessly.
‘Leave.’
‘Safe,’ ‘With,’ ‘You,’ they retorted.
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Leave,’ ‘Before,’ ‘Blooded.’
An extended pause.
‘Ghost,’ ‘Fine.’
They were not referring to ghosts, but someone who once shared the name.
‘Ghost,’ ‘Not,’ ‘Blooded.’ ‘Ghost,’ ‘Not,’ ‘Fine.’
‘Ghost…’ The giant’s fingers froze, twitching towards other signs but never actualising them. Whatever line of thought they pursued was eventually abandoned. ‘Cannot,’ ‘Leave.’
Ronnie could be beaten. Easily. Rendered unconscious; but would the rendering leave permanent marks? Yet the Strain was wounded by their mere presence in this place. Bound by tighter chains with every heartbeat that passed. That was a choice. That was a choice? A choice? Truly? Would death save more than it destroyed?
Ronnie watched with a clenched jaw and wide eyes, as if form itself hinted at the arithmetic occurring within.
Pat’s tongue limply lapped at the flesh which bound it. No. Not yet. Not yet. The calculation ceased.
When it ended, the giant released a breath and turned to follow the others.
All routes to the centre ran through rivers. Though their current was weak, they carved through the aligned lands with a muted frenzy. As if fleeing from the mist’s apex. Raindrops falling from the mist above were received without ripples – the water did not receive their impact; only their mass. Nothing swum within them, distorted or otherwise.
Crossing with Pat and the bird seemed strange. Great weight anchored feet, but despite its torpor the force of the river was that of an avalanche. Everything beneath the water was crushed. The two passengers were oblivious to the battle being fought beneath the waves, scarcely inches below them. But whether they would reach the other shore was never in question.
Kara’s Lizardblood took the fording as a sign of the thin river’s safety. Ronnie saw the frantic signing on the opposite bank, but could not touch the Blooded to stop her. Her first, careful step into the water saw her ankle snap, and she slipped sideways. Into the water. When her legs splashed beneath the river, they reversed themselves as every bone within was torqued into splinters. When her torso hit it, all her organs were pulped. By that point, any mortal would already be dead. But the Lizardblood endured long enough to watch both of her arms be ripped away by the gentle current; feel her windpipe be crushed against itself. Then her head fell beneath the water, turning it opaque with a fine red mist.
There was a tree – some combination of a mighty beech and a gnarled, foetal product of the Aching – on the other side that had collapsed under its own lopsided structure. The length of its trunk was enough to span the entire river, though manoeuvring it to hang over it without touching water was impossible. In the end, it had to be held up to form a makeshift bridge. Each pilgrim eyed it warily, but when Ronnie placed their bad arm onto it, their flesh did not meld with the wood.
Five walked over the bridge without falling, then deeper into the mist. Once more it descended: thick enough that the crush of it could be felt entering the lungs. An exhalation left the fog stripped of some of its purple, fading from indigo into something that could be mistaken as blue. The rain began to slow – both in terms of it growing sparser and physically, with each droplet growing sluggish mid-air. After a point, the stagnant beads of water began to split from themselves, again and again, until they merged with the mist around.
The pilgrims were guided away from any other blush of lifeforce, and so saw none of the fading creatures that blanketed the landscape from end-to-end. They lurked just out of sight, always: the dead, dying, and tortured living. Siik only knew how they appeared to the naked eye. Perhaps they were simply more of what had already been witnessed. But this deep in, the rules were different. The transgressions borne of them would be as well.
The pilgrim’s eyes were steered away. The urge to see and hear the lives which matched the fires concealed by the mist was immense. To impress them upon memory; indelibly wind their scattered forms through thought. But those that remained needed help. As such, of that which lurked just behind a veil of purple, only one such thing was known for certain:
They should not have existed.
Repeatedly, the impossible occurred: unified flames of lifeforce would slough apart like slow-roasted meat, leaving two distinct entities were there should be one. This was not possible. It would mean splitting the essence of red; sweetness; triangles; the scent of burning – dividing one by two to reach one.
What horrible things could be born from such a process? Two gleaming mounds of flesh, each bearing half a face extrapolated into a whole one? Did one bear skin, and the other bones? But the process was impossible. And from it could only be born impossible things. Things that stepped from imaginings into reality.
But the mere attempt to make two from one should have extinguished the creatures forever.
As it did with the final Illican guard, who simply shivered once and dropped dead, as if his strings had been cut.
Lonwo’s face twisted with what might have been a single sob. He glanced backwards, then at the other pilgrims – but they were too busy staring at what lay ahead. Neither creature nor corpse waited under their gaze. The mist had not cleared; its feckless mass constricted tighter than ever.
It was a rock. A boulder covered in patches of pale white that might’ve seemed like sun-spots on a human, but were likely mundane pieces of alpine moss, gripping tightly to their home in anticipation for ferocious winds that never came. It was not the lichen that drew the eye.
Where the boulder met the earth was something easily overlooked. It did not tug at vision like a pattern on a tree might, hinting at a human face. It couldn’t. It was no pattern at all. It was an angle. Two lines, where rock met soil. Just slightly adjacent to what was possible. As if reality had crossed its eyes.
Repeatedly, the pilgrim’s gazes traced the individual components of it. The lines. Individually, they made sense. Collectively, they did not. Even now, it would be easy to dismiss it as a hallucination – but that would require an imagination capable of capturing something that squatted beyond the realm of possibility. Maybe everyone present was simply too stupid to comprehend it.
Words fail. Memory does not. It was there, and in the coming steps, there were many more like it.
More walking commenced; the Heartlander, Kara, Lonwo, and Ronnie carefully waddling behind like a raft of metaphysically-challenged ducklings through a violet sea of nonsense obstacles that would condemn at a touch. They did not walk for long.
One final time, the fog receded. The pilgrims had reached the eye of the storm.
There was a caldera: a bowl-shaped depression in the ground, rugged at its sides as if they were in the process of dissolving by the mist frothing within it. Or maybe it was a lake: filled with violet water skewed at writhing angles. Or perhaps it was a simple valley. It didn’t matter.
Hanging over it was a single tiny mushroom, slowly, delicately being stripped from itself by countless strings of purple – thin yet articulate in ways hands were not. Cap was separated from gills, exposing its fleshy innards, then stalk, then the countless tiny strands that once bound it to soil; all as still as it had once been on the ground.
It was held aloft by a glow of purple, underneath a single, immense eye that dominated the mist-shrouded sky. Its purple sclera and violet iris made a token strip around a pupil so immense the curvature of the lens beneath was perceptible. A transparent body surrounded it; riddled with capillaries and veins and chunks that might’ve been a brain, had it not been so decentralised.
Under its singular gaze, one-at-a-time, each individual component of the fungus shed pieces of itself into purple mist. The exact same process that the Illican guard had undergone. Flesh and blood and being severed from itself. Until nothing remained of them at all.
Then a shroud of tiny purple fingers rotated the eye sideways, until its pupil was a singularity of black filling the sky. Directed neither at Ronnie nor the other mortals present. For a moment, it felt as the ground was growing upwards. But it was merely a cloud of purple rising, bringing Pat and the bird and their carrier upwards, to be held aloft by divinity’s hand.
Those present watched.
Scalpels of purple peeled away onyx flesh. Strip by strip, they were separated from one another. Reduced, piece by piece. Fleck by fleck. Eight disembodied eyes drifted through the air, seeing all. But none faded to mist. The rotation of the immense eye grew faster, as did the reduction of the midnight flesh it dissected.
The entity was as ungraspable as the land around it. Delivering sacrilege onto all it beheld. Its form was as mist; thoughts touching nothing of it. Its actions were cruel; senseless. The mortals below had eyes filled with awe. But in those above, there was only incomprehension.
“Heal Pat.”
“Heal the bird.”
“Please save them.”
The eye was twisted under a veil of purple sideways. It stared at the dying bird. Slowly but surely, the mushrooms embedded in its chest were sliced from its feathered chest. Veins and flesh were knitted together. An open wound closed.
In that writhing place, the bird hopped upright and took flight. It soared upwards under the eyes of all present, piercing the featureless mist. And though no mortal gaze could see it, to the sky above.
It flew away.
Then the eye turned to Pat and a whimper rang over that foul place as his fur was stripped from his body in a spray of blood.
A world of touch, smell, and taste. Of the warmth of a body far greater than your own and the wriggling masses trying to attach to her. These things are denied to you. Her great mass kicks you aside, and though you search, you never find her again. But someone finds you. For the first thing you ever see is the broad, broken-toothed smile of the Friend. He calls you Pat, and so Pat you become.
The thing that was me screamed and extended its limb in a spiral of darkened rope towards the other god.
The Friend looks after you. Every day you wake before the sun, where he feeds you and runs you down with wet cloth. He carries you in a stretch of dead skin beneath his arm for many days, then when you’re large enough to keep pace with Humans’ long, twinned legs you walk beside him. There is a lot of walking. A lot of the Friend looking at the ground with his Pack. Many days you find nothing. But at the end of some, there is the creature you come to know as the Quarry – the beast that clever Friend and his dextrous Pack with all their long teeth bring down.
As the tendril drew a deep gouge across its Quarry, it brought its many eyes to bear upon the other thing but found no sign of change.
The Friend also speaks to you. At first, you do not understand. But his sharp barks tell you what is Bad. Many things are Bad. Making dirt inside four walls: Bad. Fighting the furniture: Bad. Not coming when called: Bad. You are ofttimes Bad. But though you are certain the Friend will always love you, more than anything else in the world you want the Friend to be pleased with you. To croon at you; to tell you that you have done Good and been Good and are Good.
Yet there was an opportunity afforded here: for the thing to bring its disparate pieces together – binding them with an exertion of will – into its grotesque onyx form as the black blood pulses in its ears, and spin itself on the momentum of the motion to pluck its – its? Pat’s? – flayed body from the grasp of the god and send another limb trailing towards the ground.
The Friend teaches you how to be Good. What signals should determine your behaviour; when you should be a nose for the smell-blind Pack; where you should make dirt and not; who is Pack and who is Other and what is Quarry. You spend time around many Humans, who like you and you like, but not as much as the Friend. Amongst them is the Big Woman – who must be watched, for her obvious power – and her three pups. They give the Friend and you food, which is very nice.
There, Ronnie grasped the tendril in one great arm and yanked so fiercely that the giant fell to the ground, but the motion was enough to embed the thing’s arm into the dirt as an anchor to reel itself down like a fish on a line; yet the eye allowed its retreat.
You hunt the Quarry, for that is what the Friend and his Pack do. You eat. You walk the sandstone streets through Dust and Still. You encounter other dogs: some puppies, some venerable, but mostly suspicious characters whose obvious Otherhood makes them objects of deep concern. You sleep with the Friend at the end of every day, and you are content. Then on a day when the sky weeps black, the Friend dies.
For the eye was looking elsewhere.
The Friend is dead. He is dead when the Big Man brings you to find him. He is dead when the Big Man burns him. He is dead when his body is nothing but ash.
Ronnie was lifted into the air within a haze of violet strings and the eye brought itself closer to the Strain, rotating ponderously between its two arms and the giant’s neck.
He is dead every day. He is dead when you eat. He is dead when you wait for him. He is dead when you search for him. He is dead when you doze. He is dead when you walk the streets at night. He is dead when you wake up and when you finally fall asleep, the Friend is dead.
Though the thing leapt its legs were not enough to reach that great height.
You are needed, still. For the Big Woman is dead, and the Pup was dangerous and you scared him away, leaving only the Girl and the Boy remaining. Alone, like you. And even if the Friend is dead, you will still be Good for him.
Then Ronnie’s larynx emerged from their neck with neither blood nor gore, leaving the giant silently clawing at their neck and the thing recalled a million moments to warp its limb into a mechanism that launched a bolt towards the sky.
You stay with them. When they use their long fangs on air, you remain with them. When they push pieces of dead Quarry across the great empty of the world, you watch the world around them. When they sleep, you wake to check on Girl and then Boy. When the great horde of Others descend upon them, gnashing their teeth and held back only by the stern words of the Big Man, you show your teeth. When the Girl howls afterwards and the Boy sobs and yells at the sky, you stay with them.
The spur of bone soared by Ronnie, then snapped backwards at the fleshy tether at its base, whipping around for the giant to seize in their good arm as the eye dismantled their voice-box with singular focus.
One day, they leave. With another Pack, and the Healer. You go a long way, and the way is strange; full of smells and sounds and sights unlike any you know. It is sometimes scary, and sometimes when you wake in the mornings there is a moment where everything is still Home and the Friend is there, but then you remember he is not and you are far away. But though the walking is cold and long it is interesting and fun and the Girl and the Boy are with you, and they love you and you love them.
Yet then it recreated the voice-box, and bound Ronnie with strings of its own to reinsert the larynx, and the first sound to ever emerge from Ronnie’s mouth was a wordless howl of terror as the god’s purple strings began cutting through their other arm, yet the vigour of the thing that was me’s pulling was barely enough to seize it down.
Then others join the Pack for a bit, and then the Pack is dead. The Bone Woman emerges covered in their blood. But the Boy and the Girl stay with her, so you do too. You walk and at the end is Pup intensified a thousandfold; made Quarry. But Quarry-Pup does not attack. So you go with the Bone People to a hole in the ground, and it is there you stop being able to move, sometimes.
And when the immense eye turned back downwards, it seized on something else, for there, walking along a stretch of air as if solid ground waited just beneath the veneer of reality, was a ghost.
You stop working and a great hurt is brought upon you. You blur in and out of coherency. There is sleep and there is pain. Though the Boy and the Girl try to give you food, you don’t want it. You understand that you will be dead soon, and that the food is wasted on you. The Boy and the Girl cry, sometimes. You try to get up but you can’t. You can’t be Good because you can’t get up. You know that is Bad. That hurts you most.
Ronnie collapsed on the ground, with their only wound a superficial cut on their arm, but they were not the casualty, for there was death – the end of all that had been laboured for – and horrendous agony.
You feel the death stirring from within your bones begin to wake. Some deep impulse tells you to wander away where none can find you. But the Quarry-Pup finds you even still, and it cradles you in its arms and it says many things at once; always whispering. It tells you over and over again you are Good. Even when you are torn from its arms and hurt beyond hurt is delivered upon you, it screams a scream beyond words and tells you that you are Good.
So the thing that was me whispered such words one last time, and snapped its own neck between two hands.
If you are truly Good, would the Friend be happy with you?
Then it was over.
Above, the eye patiently attempted to bring its strings to bear upon the ghost. Repeatedly, the miniscule empurpled fingers failed to find traction on the air and slipped through. Yet its only response was to begin sending its tendrils in at different angles. When that failed, a radiant haze of violet settled over the ghost, but its march was unaltered.
For a moment, the eye gazed at nothing.
Then the purple implements through which the god interfaced with the world turned on itself. Purple tendrils fell upon the eye. Layer by layer, it stripped its own being apart. Cornea from sclera from lens from the transparent body within. The many veins and capillaries extracted from itself. Each hung in the air by strings of purple. They were separated, and hung away from one another.
Then, finally, each piece of the god dissolved into purple mist, and it was gone.
What questions without end? Dissecting the bounds of reality, even as every slice tears the border of itself apart? Every man, woman and child knows the answer: Yoot; The Owl; the Mage; the Monk; the Dissolute; the one who asks.
The only trace it left behind was the wall of violet fog surrounding the place, and the corpse on the ground beneath.
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When Ronnie and the pilgrims were carried out, the day had fallen and night reigned, unchallenged by storm, rain, or cloud.
Those that had remained soon fell unconscious as the fog drawn into their lungs throughout their pilgrimage made itself apparent. The substance was removed from Ronnie via a series of runes carved on a chunk of nearby bark – a task made less complex by its proximity to the initial blooding – which hopefully occurred immediately enough to prevent long-term effects. The Owlblood within the giant’s body was stored with a glass vial offered by the Andorish guard who had taken Khoe from the place.
The noble himself was dead. His brief exposure to the mist had let something vital within him slip. His corpse seemed too whole to be dead. Every second that passed came with the expectation that Khoe’s chest would raise once more – a shuddering breath accompanying his eyes flashing open, mindless of the blood that had dried on his eyes and ears. But beneath his peaceful veneer were motionless veins, and that dissonance seemed to beat with a pulse of its own.
Neither the three Heartlanders nor the Andorish guard who had departed with them had managed to leave. The remaining Andorish guard refused to allow the operation on the three survivors – Lonwo, Kara, and the Heartlander whose name hadn’t been spoken aloud – who slept still. They had sought Owlblood for reasons of their own, and to take it from them would render their suffering impotent. Pointless.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it was cruel to rob the giant of the choice to become a Blooded, but is a choice made in ignorance truly qualified as such? It mattered little. In the end, the voiceless had no say.
Perhaps the Owl’s careless gift would change one half of that equation which ruled Ronnie’s life. But until then, all that remained was to carry them and a derelict hound back to the Seeds. But though both were carried away from that place, the memory of it endured.
The plants made alien by feckless stitching. The bodies merged together, and broken because of it. Two made from one. And that brought thoughts of one made from two. Of the blending of green and red. Of a raindrop falling into water and leaving no ripple. And that image’s cousin, where the sky wept black and a crimson ocean did not feel its fall.
The thing that was me thought of Sash and Dash – of the Girl and the Boy – surrounded by a horde that bled as red as the earth, and it was frightened.
And it only knew one certain way to save them.