CHAPTER FOURTEEN—ANGOR NODE

She was fast.

Very fast.

Debaku was surprised at her speed and agility, and her capability when making quick judgments. Her training with the illusive and secretive hashashins of Ashahnai was either at play here, or she understood the Angor very well.

Debaku kept pace, neither complaining or asking questions. It had been some time since he had been with another who could maintain herself so well as he did, for they were both assassins—Debaku perhaps less so.

First and foremost, he was an adventurer, but at times, the Black Cobra of Mar’a Thul was a mercenary and even a bodyguard. When the pay suited him.

He was not a “good” man, but his time with Shiro had softened some of his evil ways, and Debaku began to understand that perhaps this was necessary. When Archaemenes was lost, Debaku had also in a way, become lost.

He had slipped down the path that his most venerable companion had put him upon—and he had become the Black Cobra. A man and adventurer, and assassin, with a great reputation.

A terrible reputation.

Samira slowed, and so did Debaku. His snake eyes were not like hers or like most. His vision was not excellent, but he had other uses for those eyes, and with his tongue, he could taste subtle changed in the air.

And now he did taste something.

The stink of a great monster… It is unlike anything I have ever tasted before.

He moved his tongue about in his mouth, but it did not good. “We are close,” whispered Samira.”

“To the beast?”

She turned, “In a way, yes.” Then she turned back, said, “come,” as she waved him forward. She walked on, her footfalls light and almost noiseless, an art of her hashashin training no doubt.

Debaku also kept his footfalls as quiet as possible.

The two of them could have been birds stepping over the fallen leaves as they moved through the dirt and grasses towards a large rock above a hill.

They continued toward it, and for a time Debaku thought that Samira would lead him atop that rock to look down—down upon the monster, but then he saw the rock, its shape.

It was all wrong.

And the noise.

Like great breathing.

Somewhere in the distance, the sound of something dragging across the ground, or perhaps moving… under the ground?

The rock that was not a rock had fronds and they moved subtly and Debaku, who was rarely fearful of anything, began to feel apprehension as his heart increased slightly.

Samira bent down into the grass and motioned with her hand for Debaku to stay quiet as he approached. He bent down too, looking on at the thing. It was hard to see for what it was, for the creature was silhouetted in the dark, it’s shape a misty shape in the thick foggy haze that covered these hills.

“The monster,” she whispered, “has many nodes.”

“Nodes?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, looking at him.

Had they been in a circumstance that did not presage extreme danger, Debaku might have admired Samira’s great beauty. Her skin was light, her eyebrows thick and dark, like the color of her eyes.

“The nodes, are much smaller than the monster proper, but they surround the beast and act much the same as it does. They send out tendrils to search for prey, and they drag that prey back, and ingest it here.”

The Black Cobra glanced from Samira’s face back to the node. He wondered what it looked like. Was it a beautiful flour, or a green thing?

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“Do we destroy the nodes first?”

“You must,” she said. “For each node has many tendrils. Some of which are meant to quest for prey, while others, different kinds, are defensive. The defensive tendrils are thicker, wider, with many sticky polyps.”

“How much thicker?”

“Like massive leaves that stretch out across the grounds,” she said. She nodded to the node. “You can see them, undulating there.” She pointed.

Debaku did indeed see what looked like an undulating leaf shape, large and ponderous. Though it did not look as if it could stretch out very far. He trusted what Samira said.

He almost sighed. This is going to be more difficult than I thought. “How many nodes are there?”

She shrugged slightly.

Debaku was surprised, and alarmed. If they did not know to which the extent of this monster’s power lay, then there were bound to be terrible problems ahead for them all once they decided to kill it.

“You do not know?”

“Hey,” she said in a reprimanding tone. “If I knew exactly how many there were, I would have destroyed this monster a long time ago.”

“Do you think you have the strength to do this alone?”

“Probably not,” she admitted. She reached into a small satchel that hung at her waist and pulled out a velum scroll. She unfurled it and handed it to Debaku.

What he saw was a kind of map.

“This,” she said, “is the extent of my exploration concerning the Angor. These—they are the nodes.”

They were painted in white, and the massive purple bulb in the center must have been…

“This,” she said, pointing to that purple bulk, “is the monster proper.”

Debaku blinked. “The monster… it is massive, yes?”

She nodded, saying nothing more. The weight of her wordless affirmation hung in the air between them.

He counted the nodes. “There are seventeen nodes?”

“That I have discovered,” she said. “As you can see, they are not evenly distributed around the Angor’s central core, which leaves me to suspect that there are at least ten more out there.”

She was right. Their placement was haphazard—at least to Debaku, it looked that way. Surely the monster had grown them there purposely to suit its location and ability to collect food and defend itself the best.

They simply could not see it, and Samira did not let on that she understood the reason behind their positioning. She was an intelligent woman, but above all, she was an assassin and a monster hunter—not a scribe or a master of Gaia.

Then he did sigh.

“We must be careful,” she said. “The tendrils that took hold of you before—they were merely hunter tendrils. Not the defensive ones. The others—when they strike you, they put a sticky acid upon your body that can immobilize you if you are too weak. Also, they will sap your magical energy and you will become weakened.

“You have seen this happen?”

She nodded. “I have,” she said. “I have studied the Angor for close to a year now.”

“You prepare well,” said said, unable to hide a smile.

“Yes, but not well enough, and now I am forced to do something about the beast. I might as well when I have your help, yes?”

He nodded.

“Otherwise, you fools might destroy it on your own.” She too smiled then, a wry amusement. “If you survived that is—then you would be cheating me of my victory over this great monster.”

“We have a need to pass through this part the Isles of Sand and Bones,” said Debaku. “We have no choice. I am sorry.”

“Do not be. Perhaps this is fate. I am well ready to be quit of this place. But first, before I go back to greater Ashahnai, I must needs a powerful trophy to bring to my brother, the ruling sultan.”

“Why do you need this trophy?”

She looked at him. “I have been away for a long time. Partially…” she hesitated. “Partially because our enemies, but some of that is also my own doing.”

Debaku nodded and did not press her to reveal her secrets or her past. Those things were her own, and should she wish to tell him later, she would.

“How do we deal with these nodes so that we can destroy the core?”

She turned her head, a gesture of great exertion conveyed by her body language. “We will have to attack many places at once.”

“Our forced will sure to be thin.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “However, you do have an army, yes?”

“Not to waste on this Angor,” he said. “We need it intact for when we get back to our own lands.”

She raised an eyebrow. “’Our own lands’? Are you sure, Mar’a Thulian?”

“Many things have changed, Princess,” he said with a smile. “You do not know Shiro and his friends as I do.”

“I have learned not to trust the jinni,” she said. “They usually turn out to be Djinn.”

The Djinn were jinni, but of a more unsavory character. Not by race, Debaku understood, but by character, none of which was an innate thing. Despite his good nature, Archaemenes had quite possibly been a Djinn. Perhaps he too had changed his nature over time.

“Well,” Debaku said. “You will come to understand in time, I am certain.”

“Hmph,” she scoffed. Then she looked up at the Angor Node. “It is becoming agitated. “The Node knows there is something wrong. Look at the tendrils.”

The thicker tendrils had indeed come out of the bulbous form to stretch our far higher into the air, their undulations quicker and somewhat agitated in nature.

“Now that you understand what we are dealing with—you can tell your friends that what I have spoken in warning to them is true, yes?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. Then we must go before we are eaten.” She turned and stalked in the opposite direction, away from the Angor Node.

Looking at the hulking monster one last time, Debaku thought he felt dizzy as the muffled form of something came to him, like a whisper on the wind.

Debaku!

Blinking, he shook his head, listened.

It was gone.

The Black Cobra was not even certain he had heard what he heard.

Samira hissed, and he turned to her. She gestured that he follow. “Samira,” he said quietly.

She turned her head. “What is it?”

“The Angor…”

“What?”

“Does it have… psychedelic abilities?”

“What?”

“Can it interfere with one’s mind?”

The way she moved her head implied great impatience and incredulity. “We must go. Come.”

Debaku followed.