I should probably be more respectful. Clearly, something happened here. Clearly, it was big. Clearly, a lot of people died and a lot of things were smashed. But I can’t help but think in terms of practicality. How are we to find anything in this? It’s like a giant web of stone built by a spider who thought it’d be much easier to simply annoy its prey to death.
We walked until nightfall. Or what I think is probably nightfall. It might also be morning. The mist won’t tell me. It doesn’t matter. I won’t be sleeping tonight.
I see them in the mist. Some of them are moving, some of them are not. There are statues there. Robed men, gods for faces, hands extended. They were on Teji, too, mounted on treads like siege engines. Here, they’re on the bows of ships. Sunken ships. Some are crashed on the pillars, some are tossed on their sides like trash, some look like they’ve been sinking into the sea for years. . centuries, probably.
Those aren’t the moving ones.
The moving ones make noise. Wailing, warbling cries in the mist, like they’re talking to each other. Not human. Not that I’ve heard. If they know we’re here, they’re not talking to us. Or not to me, anyway. I see Kataria stop and stare out there sometimes, like she’s trying to listen.
That’s when those noises stop and the other ones begin.
These ones are voices. Not the usual ones, mind. They’re. . hard to hear. Like whispers that forgot what whispers are supposed to sound like. I can’t understand them, but I can hear them. Sometimes the other way around. They are. . calling out.
Maybe they’re like us, got lost in the mist somewhere way back before language had words and are still trying to find their way out.
Maybe I should count myself lucky that I’ve only been lost for a day.
Or two days? It’s hard to keep track, what with no sleep, no sun, and the whole fear of being disemboweled in my sleep. . thing.
I should ask Kataria.
I should ask Kataria when she wakes up.
I should kill Kataria now.
It would be easier right now, when she can’t fight back, when she can’t look at me, when she can’t. .
It’s hard to think.
And I can’t think of anything else.
Voices in the head will usually do that: make a man single-minded. And I can’t help but feel angry at her, like I want to hurt her, like I should. Like the voice tells me I should.
But it doesn’t tell me that. It isn’t threatening me. It isn’t demanding I do anything. All it does is talk. .
It talks about that night on the ship. It talks about how she looked me in the eyes and left me to die. After that, everything is me.
I’ve gotten close. I’ve raised my sword. I’ve seen how my hands could fit around her neck. But every time I do, I remember why it is I wanted to cry and I think. .
. . there must be something else. Why did she abandon me? I never asked. I tried not to think about it. She never told me why. She looked me in the eyes. She left me to die.
I remember she looked sad.
And I remember the woman in my dreams, telling me it won’t stop if I kill her, telling me that I can’t listen to the voice. And then the voice starts screaming. Not talking, screaming. It tells me all about her, what she did, what I must do. And I still remember the woman and I still remember Kataria and I still want to cry and die and kill and fight and drown and sleep and never have to think again.
. . like I said, I try not to think about it. Too much.
She has to live for now. She’s got the skills for tracking and the senses for getting us out of here and to Jaga and to the tome. The tome that we need to find again. The tome that the voice wants me to find again.
No.
That I want to find.
Me.
I think.
Too hard to think.
Too hard to kill Kataria.
Should have killed Asper first.
That’d have been easier.
ELEVEN
He had just closed his eyes when he caught the scent. It cloyed in his nostrils: silk, orchids, perfumes for wealthy women that fought and failed to quell the natural aroma of femininity. Stars. Candle wax. Violet skies.
He wanted to sleep.
His eyelids had just begun to tremble when he caught her voice.
“No, no,” she whispered, a light giggle playing across her words. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he asked.
“Don’t open your eyes.”
“Why not?”
“Because the world is ugly,” she replied. “And thought is beautiful. Whatever you’re thinking of right now is infinitely more beautiful than whatever it is that awaits you when you open your eyes.”
“And if I’m thinking of something ugly?”
“What are you thinking of?”
You, he thought. How much I miss you. What kind of life I’ve led where I couldn’t be with you. Whether I was wrong all this time and there are gods and there are souls and mine will wander forever when I finally die, far from your arms, and how much more that fact terrifies me than the other one. Always you.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Simply nothing?”
“Nothing is simple.”
“Precisely,” she said. “And because nothing is simple, nothing is beautiful. There is nothing more beautiful. That’s why your eyes must stay closed and you have to hold onto that.”
“To what?”
“Nothing.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to. It’s beautiful.”
“I’m opening my eyes now.”
And when he did, there was nothing. There was no ground. There was no sky. There were no trees and there was nothing to burn and turn to ash. There was nothing.
But her.
And her head in his lap. And her black hair streaming like night. And the ink drying upon her breasts. And her smile. And her scent. And her. Always her.
“Did I not tell you?” she asked.
“You said nothing would be as beautiful as what I was thinking.”
“And?”
“It is.”
“Then I was right.”
“I can’t admit to that.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you’ll be rubbing my face in it all day and night and I’ll never get any sleep. Not that it matters, anyway, I’ve got to be going shortly.”
“Where do you have to go?”
“I have to go after that man. He killed a lot of people.”
“Maybe he had a good reason.”
“There is never a good reason for killing that many people.”
“How many have you killed?”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“Then you shouldn’t think about it so much.”
“It’s my duty to think about it.”
“I thought your duty was to uphold the law of the Venarium.”
“It is.”
“Is he wanted by the Venarium?”
“No.”
“Then you can take the day off, surely. We can sit here and think about nothing until we have nothing left, and then we’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“He killed people.”
“So have you.”
“He nearly destroyed Cier’Djaal.”
“Perhaps he didn’t mean to.”