The shadow clung to its skin as it rose out of the darkness, rising with needy tendrils as a human face, milk-pale, glass-boned, rose on a thick stalk of gray flesh. The woman’s lips pulled into a frown.
“We were Her most trusted, Her most ardent. We turned to Her when our families turned us away, when our lovers turned us to whores, when the earth turned us to bodies. And She welcomed us.”
“And She loved us.” Another head rose from the water, hair ebon black, eyes narrowed angrily. “And took us from cold earth. And when the mortal armies and your wicked people came for Her, we leapt into the darkness after Her. And we came back. For this.”
The Deepshriek turned both heads to the frogman with the tome and nodded. The creature dove beneath the water, disappearing into shadow.
“Don’t-” Lenk managed to speak before the demon’s claw tightened around his throat. He struggled with one arm, grasping and beating on the demon’s hand, hoping the other wouldn’t be noticed as it crept closer to the hilt of his sword.
“Are you so selfish, creature?” The Deepshriek spat the words. “Did you not see the suffering your breed caused? Did you not look at the faces of the hollow children and the dead? Do you think that your own twisted nature is enough to deny the world Her warmth?” Fangs bared, a hiss burst forth. “I heard you speak to that cold thing in the darkness.”
“I am nothing like-”
“You are. You are everything like it. She has been in your head. She has seen your thoughts. Murder. Treachery. Hatred. All that grows in your mind is born of the same murderous seed. You came here to kill Her, She who only wishes to be reunited with Her children.”
Its eyes steadied. Its lips closed. It smiled.
“That’s why She wants you be alive to see this.”
The heads disappeared beneath the water. Lenk reached after them, as though he could still stop them. The Abysmyth held fast, not even bothering to remove the arrows from its eye.
And soon, the darkness was alive. Words burbled up, too powerful to be contained by the gloom, too powerful to be spoken by mortal lips. Red light flashed in great spurts beneath, illuminating them in flashes: Abysmyths and frogmen swimming in a dark halo. The Deepshriek’s heads bent over a book as its shark body swam around it, the epicenter of the endless circles. A great shape, a vast circle of light that painted the darkness in brief flashes, ever longer, ever wider.
The Aeons’ Gate.
Opening.
And from the light, something greater emerged, something painted dark against the crimson, a stain of ink spreading into a pool of blood. Great tentacles emerging, golden stars winking into life, a pair of bright jaws opening.
“No, no, no!” Lenk screamed.
His blade was in his hand, drawn free. He swung it, struck the Abysmyth’s arm. It dropped him, though with no great roar of agony, no blood. His blade could no longer hurt the thing. He had left that power behind, in the chasm. His shoulder hurt. He was tired. He was terrified.
He didn’t care.
He ran toward Kataria. His blade could still cut the frogmen. She lashed out a leg, striking one in the groin. It gurgled, loosed its grip on her. The others tried to seize her arm as she reached up and began to claw at their eyes.
“Kataria!” he screamed. “Kataria, hurry! We have to-”
In the roar of water being split, he could not be heard. In the wake of the shadow that fell over him, he could not be seen. And as the tentacle, red flesh quivering, suckers trembling, swept down and wrapped about his ankle, he could no longer stand.
“Come to me.”
A voice, somewhere down in the dark, spoke to him.
“Come to me.”
The tentacle pulled, dragging him as he raked at the stone floor wildly.
“Come.”
He reached out.
“Come.”
He shouted out to Kataria.
“Come.”
He fell into darkness.
“Stop.”
His voice was parched and weak.
“Wait.”
He grasped only their shadows as they ran past.
“I need help.”
The Shen couldn’t see or hear him. They were running, screaming, trying to dig their companions out from beneath the statue, carrying off the wounded into the forest.
And he was bleeding.
And his friends were somewhere out there, in the great melee, amongst the dead. Or behind him somewhere, where the longfaces had charged up, along with the she-beast on the regular beast. His friends were gone. The Shen were running.
He was bleeding.
He walked through the dust that would not settle, the blood pouring from the sky. He walked over the bodies heaped on the ground and past the women who were alive only in their swords. He walked to the giant mountain, kneeling upon the field of death, breathing heavily as smoke poured from his flesh. The longface had done something, sent lightning into his body. He had to stop that thing before it killed the others. He had to keep going. He had to fight. .
A hand went to his side, he felt traces of life slipping past the spearhead embedded in his side, out between his fingers. Slowly. It was a courteous wound, in no hurry to kill him and more than willing to let someone else take a crack at it first.
And she came. A Carnassial, tall and ragged and painted in blood. She approached him with eyes that belonged in the heads of dead people, eyes that forgot why they were doing what they did. She hefted her sword, loosed a ragged howl on a ragged breath and took exactly two steps forward.
When her foot hit the ground, the Abysmyth’s foot hit her.
The great demon had arisen from the sheets of dust and blood, emerging from such carnage that a beast of such horror would scarcely stand out. It stomped its great webbed foot upon the Carnassial, grinding her into the sand. Its flesh was carved with wounds, bits of iron jutting from its skin. In place of a left arm, a stump, sickly green with poison, hung from a bony shoulder.
“They don’t call out when they die,” the Abysmyth gurgled, “to god or man. They simply. . scream. It is a strange thing to see.” At that moment, the beast seemed to notice Gariath. “When you die, who will you call out to?”
Gariath wasn’t sure why he answered honestly; perhaps because he had thought upon the question for so long it merely slipped out.
“My family.”
“Do they live?”
“No.”
“What infinite mercy do I grant you, lamb.” The Abysmyth’s foot rose with a squishing sound. “What terrors do I spare you, child.” Its single arm reached out, almost invitingly. “What glories do I send you to. Come to me.”
A green arm appeared around the beast’s neck. The demon scarcely seemed to notice the added weight on its back. Truly, Gariath himself only barely noticed the bright yellow eyes appearing from behind it. And only when the creature had climbed up to the beast’s shoulders and held the waterskin high above his head did Gariath recognize Hongwe.
“Shenko-sa!” the Gonwa cried out, a fleeting and insignificant noise against the din of war. He thrust the waterskin into the beast’s mouth.
The skin punctured only barely upon its teeth, but the water came flooding out like a wolf free from a cage. It swept over the beast’s mouth, through its teeth, over its jaws. It engulfed the creature’s jaw, eyes, neck, throat, shoulders. The Abysmyth was aware of it, of the pain it caused the creature, as it clawed at the liquid with its free hand. Those droplets that were torn free and fell upon the ground quickly reformed, sped back to the demon and leapt upon it until its black skin was replaced with a liquid flesh.
The creature flailed, a raindrop falling from heaven, before it splashed to the earth. The water fell from it, was drank by the glutted earth. What remained was a gaping, skinless skull staring up at Gariath.