Tome of the Undergates

The demon stopped its wailing. Lenk sprang off its back.

Its breathing was heavy now, laboured and ragged, shining rivers pouring out of it with every gasp. Even as it swayed upon its knees, its eyes could not express the despair it clearly felt as it stared blankly at the weapon. The sword looked back up at it through metal eyes, cruel and remorseless, denying the pity the Abysmyth so desperately wanted.

The wind moaned in the distance. Smoke parted above. A beam of light descended warily to the blackened earth and illuminated the silver spike as the demon reached up and fingered its tip.

‘So loud,’ it whispered, ‘the sky is. . so loud.’ Waterfalls of black bile leaked out from between its serrated teeth, stained the ground. ‘It hurts. .’ Quietly, it looked up to the sky. ‘Mother. . how come it hurts?’

Kataria watched it collapse, the sword hilt proud in the sunlight, and a thought struck her.

That should not have happened. .

It was when she blinked and felt her eyes squish that another thought rose.

I can’t breathe.

As though it had seemed a foreign concept until that moment, she began to rake at her face, pulling mucus off in great sheets. The slime seemed to resent this, trying to seep further inside her each time she clawed. Her lungs were ready to burst, heart ready to explode, mind ready to turn to stone and drag her head to the ground.

And still she raked.

Boots crunched. She felt a shadow descend upon her.

‘Lenk,’ she gurgled, choked, ‘help.’

He stood above her, unmoving, shadowed by the blend of smoke and sunlight.

‘Lenk,’ she said again, voice straining to get out through the ooze.

He twitched, knelt down beside her.

She opened her mouth to plead again, but found herself breathless. Blood froze in her veins, breath forgotten as her jaw went slack. She gasped; the ooze found its door into her body and flooded in. Her next breath was the last she took before she felt herself slip away, but even through the darkness of her eyes, she could still see him.

Lenk, skin as grey as a drowned corpse, eyes blue and burning, bereft of pupils.

Seventeen

BURY YOUR FRIENDS DEEP

‘Is it working?’

Asper could feel Lenk’s eyes with such intensity they threatened to crack her skull. His stare darted between the priestess, sweating and pumping knotted hands over her patient’s chest, and the shict, who lay breathless upon the ground.

Asper kept her actual thoughts to herself; it just seemed in poor taste to tell him his concern over his dying companion was slightly irritating.

‘I don’t know yet.’ She pressed a pair of fingers against Kataria’s throat. ‘This sort of thing works on drowning victims, but only if we get to them quickly.’ No pulse; she kept her head low to conceal her frown. ‘Really, I just have no idea if it works on drowning by demons.’

‘Well, try-’

‘Oh, is that what I’m supposed to be doing?’ she snarled over her shoulder at him. ‘I’m not putting hands on her chest for your enjoyment, you know. Back away, moron!’

He nodded weakly, backing away. Such readiness to obey distressed her. It was exceedingly unlike the young man to so willingly bow out of such a situation. Then again, she considered, it was exceedingly unlike him to express any interest in death. Yet he seemed to be dying with the shict, moping about her soon-to-be-corpse like a dog around its dying master.

Asper forbore to tell him this.

She was sorely tempted to tell him to stop staring at her, though. His eyes bored into the back of her skull, drilling into two well-worn spots in her head where other, weary stares had rested. Gazes from mothers with fevered children, fathers with raped daughters had left the first scratches upon her scalp. Soldiers with wounded comrades and sons with ailing elders had bored even deeper.

Lenk’s stare, however, went well beyond her skin. He peered past hair, flesh, blood and bone into the deepest recesses of her mind. He saw her, she felt, and all the workings of her brain.

He knew she couldn’t save this one.

NO! she shrieked at herself inside her own head. Don’t think like that. You can do this. These hands have healed before, countless people. These hands. .

Her gaze was drawn to her left hand, resting limply upon the shict’s abdomen. It twitched suddenly, temptingly. You could end it all, you know, her thoughts drifted, just a bit of pressure, like you did to the frogman. Then, poof! All over! She won’t have to suffer any more. .

‘No, no, no, NO!’

She ignored the concerned stares cast her way, ignored her hand, ignored everything but the placid expression upon Kataria’s face and the stillness of her heart.

‘I can do this,’ she muttered, beginning chest compressions anew, ‘I can do this, I can do this.’ She found solace in the repetition, so much that she barely noticed the tear forming at the corner of her eye. ‘Please, Talanas, let me do this. .’

Lenk stared at Asper’s back, watching the sweat stain grow longer down her robe.

It was a hard battle to resist the urge to rush up beside the priestess, to see if he could help, if he could do something. He was used to fixing things: fixing the fights between his companions, fixing the agreements between him and his employers, fixing to jam hard bits of steel into soft flesh.

That’s how it should be.

He should have been able to fix this.

The sound of metal gently scraping against skin was loud, unbearable. He cast a resentful, sidelong scowl at his companion. Denaos, however, paid no heed to the young man, gingerly working at his fingernails with a tiny blade. Eventually, it seemed Lenk’s stare became a tad more unbearable and Denaos glanced back at him.

‘Sweet Silf, fine,’ he hissed, ‘I’ll do yours, if you’re so damn envious.’

‘Kataria,’ Lenk replied sharply, ‘is dying.’

‘To be more precise, Kataria may already be dead.’

Lenk blinked at him. Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried.

‘What?’ Denaos hardly looked at him as he plucked up a waterskin from the ground and took a drink.

‘This doesn’t bother you?’ Lenk all but shrieked at the tall man, snatching the skin away. ‘You can’t even keep yourself from drinking her water?’

‘It’s our water, you milksop. She’ll have her drink if and when she wakes up. Have at least an ounce of faith in Asper, would you?’ Denaos glanced over to the priestess. ‘She’s doing her best. She’ll do what’s right.’

‘Really?’ Lenk permitted a squeal of relief to tinge his voice. ‘You’ve seen this sort of thing before?’

‘Once, aye.’ He nodded appraisingly as Asper pressed her lips against Kataria’s once more. ‘But the spectacle cost me a pouch of silver.’ He became aware of Lenk’s angry stare after another moment. ‘What?’

‘What is wrong with you?’ The young man forced an angry snarl between clenched teeth. ‘I almost suspect Gariath would be more sympathetic in this than you are.’

‘He’s further up the beach,’ Denaos gestured, ‘far more curious about dead demons than he is about Kataria.’ He cast a smug smile at Lenk. ‘Besides, it’s not like he’d do anything more than I am save urinate on her corpse.’