Then they snapped shut and he disappeared.
A single moment spared to cast a low, burbling keen down upon the two piddling creatures upon the pillar. A low groaning sound as it fell on its side, crashed into the ocean with an angry wave. A fading sound of froth hissing into nothingness upon the sea.
And Gariath was gone.
Lenk looked to Kataria. Kataria looked to Lenk. Neither had the expression, the words to fit what they had just seen.
And still, they tried.
“Do we. .” Kataria asked, the words lingering into meaninglessness.
“How?” Lenk asked, the question hanging between them like something hard and iron.
And it continued to hang there, solid as the rock they did not move from, thick as the mist that closed in around them, unfathomable as the sea gently lapping against the stone.
NINE
The water was warm. Too warm, he thought as it lapped up against his ankles. It was too warm for the season. It should not be this warm.
And at that moment, he did not care that it was warm.
He looked down at his legs, ghastly white and sickly, the faintest hint of webs between his toes, as though they had started growing and lost interest later. His eyes drifted to the legs beside him, limber and tan, healthy, all the little brown toes wriggling as they kicked gentle waves in the water.
It hurt him to think that his legs had once been so healthy, to think that they might still have been if not for the circumstances that had arisen years ago. But it hurt less to look at those healthy legs than to look into her eyes.
And it hurt more to hear her speak.
“So,” Kasla said, voice too soft, “what happened?”
A question he had asked himself every breath for the past twelve hours. He had been searching for an answer for at least as long.
At first, he looked for something that would make her understand, make her realize it wasn’t his fault, make her realize it was the Gods’ fault. But that one rang hollow.
Then he looked for something that would take all the blame, something that would make her feel pity for him, make her realize he was a man driven to what he did, not a man accustomed to making choices. But that one tasted foul on his tongue.
Then, he just hoped to find one that would let her look him in the eyes again.
And now that she asked, he gave up on that, too.
“I didn’t think anyone heard me,” he said, staring down at his feet. “I called out so many times and no one ever answered. I didn’t think there was any harm in just. . doing it more.” He closed his eyes, felt the warmth lap around his ankles. “I started talking. . to no one, when I sat beside my daughter while she was sick. I started asking questions, started telling secrets, I. . I told them I was afraid. I told them I didn’t want to be alone.”
Maybe Kasla said something with her eyes. He couldn’t bear to look up and see.
“And then, when I said that. . I don’t know, maybe I just said so much that someone finally heard me. It was too late, then, my daughter was gone. But they answered. . and they told me. . and they said I didn’t have to be alone anymore.”
He looked up, out over the sea. It was calm.
“So I went to the shore. I started walking into the sea. And I didn’t stop until I became. .” He held out his hands, white and sickly. Not Hanth’s hands. “This.”
“You could have told me,” she said. “I would have understood.”
And then he looked up. He looked into her dark face under the bush of dark hair. It was pained, trying to figure out something and agonized that it didn’t make sense.
“I wouldn’t have, no,” she said with a sigh. “But you should have told me.”
“I should have,” he agreed. “I should have done many things.”
There were no stars in the sky. There were clouds. And when they shifted, a tinge of red could be seen within them. But the sky had been bled dry, of stars and of light and tears. Nothing was left.
And in the darkness, she spoke.
“Tell me why it has to be like this.”
“I already told you.”
“Tell me again. Please.”
Hanth pulled himself to his feet. The wood of the docks felt cold and splintered underneath him, sent tingling lances up through the soles of his feet and into his calves. But he cast a smile at her, as warm as the water, as he offered a hand to her.
“Because I made a lot of mistakes,” he said, gently helping her to her feet. “And the more mistakes I make, the less chances I have to make up for them.” Hand in hand, they began to walk to the end of the dock, to the vessel bobbing patiently in the water. “So when they come along, I have to take them.”
“I’m not a child,” she said, pulling her hand from his.
He winced. “I know.”
“Then don’t talk to me like one.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Because I remind you of her?”
He felt the shadow fall over them. He heard the low, guttural hiss that accompanied it. He sensed their eyes, their vast and empty stares, boring into the back of his skull. They were waiting for him, their claws twitching eagerly as they rapped upon the stone.
He did not turn around.
“Because I want you to forget this,” he said. “I want to hope, somehow, that one day you’ll just wake up and think everything has been a bad dream. This place, them. . me.”
“I never will.”
“Maybe you can’t,” he said. “But I want to hope you can.” He looked at her, swallowed hard. “If I can’t have that-”
“You can.” Her eyes were glistening, reflecting a light that wasn’t there. “I’ll try to forget.”
He nodded, silently. To say anything else would be to give her something to hold onto. Something to cling to when she wondered about what had happened to him. Something to remember when she looked out over the ocean at night and wondered if it had ever been more than just a nightmare.
He could not give her any memories of him. He wasn’t that cruel.
So he gingerly eased her into the vessel. He checked to make sure that it was laden with food, enough to see her a few days adrift in the shipping lanes. He tried not to think about what might happen to her out at sea without him.
He untied the boat.
He watched it drift out onto the sea, away from him.
He watched her, trying not to scream at her, to tell her to turn around and stop looking at him. He watched her. She watched him. And neither of them turned around.
Not until she had vanished into the night.
It wasn’t enough. He could still feel her staring when he turned around to face them.
But he forced himself not to turn back around and see if he could still catch a glimpse of her. He forced himself not to look away from them as they stared down behind veils of blue light. He forced himself to look into their eyes, the black voids that hung like obsidian moons over their needle-toothed jaws wrapped around soft, feminine lips.
“You will leave her alone,” he said flatly.
Alwaysalwaysalwaysalonealone.
He saw lips twitch, heard the whispers inside his head. He couldn’t tell which one of the two was speaking. It didn’t matter.
Apromiseisapromisepromisepromise.
MotherDeepkeepsHerpromisespromisespromises.
Youknowknowknowthisthis.
MouthMouthMouthMouth.
MouthMouthMouthMouth.
It almost sounded like a word from a language he had never heard before, the kind of direly important gibberish he had heard only in bad dreams and fever-hot ears.
Mouth.
That was his name now. That had been his name ever since he had turned around. Hanth was the bad dream now, a half-word that she would remember for a scant few breathless moments before rolling over and going back to sleep.
Hanth should stay in those bad dreams.