Black Halo

‘If you touched her …’

‘I did,’ he said, turning his smile upon the boy. ‘There’s more to her than you could know, little moth. There’s more I will learn from her. And I will do it slowly.’

It was a scream that tore itself from Dreadaeleon’s lips: unfocused, angry, wild. The electricity that launched from his fingers was no different, snaking out in a wild, twisting tongue. It was only the sheer inaccuracy of his aim that allowed the sparks to fly past a purple hand meant to ward it off and lash against a shoulder.

The longface hissed and recoiled. It had done no damage that Dreadaeleon could see: barely anything more than a black mark, barely visible against the longface’s ebon robe. He supposed it was the indignity of the blow, an electric slap in the face, that caused Sheraptus’ visage to screw up in fury, his eyes to become two angry miniature suns.

‘Pity,’ he hissed as he raised a hand and levelled it at the boy, ‘that she didn’t see that.’

It occurred to Dreadaeleon that such a blow shouldn’t feel quite as satisfying as it did. Even if it had done any discernible damage, his victory was dampened by the groans heralding the rise of the netherlings.

Slowly, shaking blood from their ears, grinding curses between their teeth, those remaining staggered to their feet with murder in their eyes. His companions remained lost to unconsciousness and the sea respectively. Sheraptus’ fingers began to crackle with blue sparks just as his eyes went alight with red.

He was going to die, Dreadaeleon realised. And all he had done was sully a robe a little.

Still, he thought with a smile, considering he had been in a coma induced by the man’s stare alone just moments ago, this didn’t feel like such a bad note to end on.

His only concern was why it was taking so long.

Sheraptus’ face twitched, neck jerked, as though a gnat were buzzing in his ear every moment he thought to discharge the lethal electricity and reduce Dreadaeleon to a smouldering husk. That same buzzing lingered in the boy’s head, too annoying to allow him to feel fear or a need for flight. It chilled him, burned him, alternating and intensifying with each breath.

Even before he felt the shadow sail over the deck, he recognised the presence of another wizard.

That hardly kept his jaw from going slack as his eyes rose to the sky, followed by a dozen wide whites and two narrowed orange slits. The presence of the newcomer felt an anathema to Sheraptus’ power, bidding the seas to churn and the moon to peer out from behind the clouds and shed light on him.

Beneath a broad-brimmed hat, a pair of hard eyes stared down at the deck from high in the sky. A coat fanned out into leathery wings behind a tall and slender body, flapping to keep him gracefully aloft above the carnage on the deck. At his hip hung a dense tome supported by a silver chain, its cover marked with a sigil of authority.

A sigil of the Venarium.

‘Oh, hell,’ Dreadaeleon whispered, ‘a Librarian.’

‘It’s quite rude to come announcing yourself with that particular presence, sir,’ Sheraptus snarled to the man. ‘Come down and let us speak without you buzzing in my head.’

Not possible, Dreadaeleon recognised. The power roiling from the Librarian was faint, but constant, worn like the easy mantle of authority that settled about his features. It was a power that came from no crown or stone, but from years of practice and merciless discipline.

‘Bralston,’ the man spoke by way of callous introduction. ‘Librarian under the authority of Lector Annis of the Cier’Djaal Venarium branch, unlimited jurisdiction, all treaties foregone, lethal force authorised and pre-absolved.’ His eyes ran over the scene with cool surveillance. ‘I have come seeking a violator of the laws of Venarie. A heretic.’

His gaze shifted from the sweaty boy in a filthy coat before settling on the purple creature with electricity dancing effortlessly on his fingers and the fire burning on his brow and in his eyes. Sheraptus recoiled, offended.

‘What makes you so sure it’s me?’ he asked.

‘Violators are offered a singular chance for absolution,’ Bralston said, descending to the deck. ‘Surrender your body for research and your crimes will be considered absolved.’

‘No one,’ a nearby netherling snarled, stalking to impose herself between Sheraptus and the Librarian, ‘speaks to the Master like-’

‘Offered and declined. Noted.’

With one smooth movement, Bralston doffed his hat and uttered a word before tossing it gently at the longface. The steel ring within instantly sprouted several glistening thorns that gnashed together with harsh, grating noise. It caught the netherling in the face, her screams muffled behind the leather as its brim wrapped about her head and the headgear’s teeth began to noisily chew.

‘Carnivorous hat,’ Sheraptus noted as the female staggered off, clawing at the garment. ‘Impressive.’

‘Librarian!’ Dreadaeleon called out, finding his nerve and voice at once. ‘Wait!’

‘All involved parties will be questioned pending execution,’ Bralston replied, his eyes burning with crimson as he extended an arm glistening with flame.

‘I recognised two of those words,’ Sheraptus said, matching the Librarian’s burning gaze and hand alike. ‘Oh, my friend, I have so much to learn from you.’

Thirty-Two

MERCY IS FOR THE DENSE

The din outside the cabin was enough to shake the ship. There had been the clash of metal and the roar of battle, a brief moment’s pause before the shuddering wail that caused the panes of glass to crack in their portholes and the doors to threaten to buckle under the pressure. Now, the snarling, roaring, grunting, clanging, hissing ruckus of fighting had resumed in earnest.

Each noise clamoured to be heard over the others, and each told Kataria nothing in their haste to tell her everything.

The din inside her head was still more aggravating. The fear, the doubt and the frustration that twisted inside her skull like so many screws were bad enough without the voice of instinct, of the Howling, of the shict she knew to be speaking to her through it, echoing in her brain.

Survive, it told her. Shicts survive. Shicts preserve. Shicts cure. You are a shict. You have a duty to your people. She found it hard to ignore the voice. Ignore the human. Her duty is to live and die. Your survival is worth more.

Especially when she couldn’t find the will to agree with it.

The will of the unseen shict came with nearly every breath, and was as impossible to ignore as it was to stop breathing. Yet for every time it bade her to look within herself, she found her eyes all the more pressed on the pale, bound figure in the corner.

Asper was still alive, though her shallow breathing and still body did not do much to support it. The priestess did not move, did not speak, did not so much as shiver anymore. The soft weeping and violent trembling had left her body and left her nothing more than a pile of limp bones and skin that muttered the same thing on soft, silent breaths.

‘You let it happen,’ she whispered. ‘I gave everything. I did everything right. You just let it happen.’

What could I do? Kataria thought to herself. How could you not have known what he was? How could you not have known to stay silent?

She is human, the Howling answered her. There is no instinct in her. She survives through other methods that she does not have now. You are a shict. You have instinct. You survive so that all shicts may survive. You have a duty to your people.

The thought was hers and not hers, a dormant, feral logic awakening within her. And it came more and more frequently, with more and more urgency. It was no longer shared knowledge. It was no longer instinct. The Howling was all her people condensed into a single thought.