Black Halo

hulking grey-skinned fish that the stalks crowned circled him. There was another stalk, hanging limp and bereft of a head. He remembered there had been another head. He remembered taking it.

He remembered the Deepshriek wanted to kill him for that.

That thought prompted the realisation of his lungs working. That realisation prompted his question.

‘Why am I alive?’

‘There was a time when sky and sea were not the petty rivals they are today,’ the Deepshriek answered in disjointed chorus. ‘They shared all. We remember that time. Ulbecetonth remembers that time.’ Their eyes narrowed to four thin slits. ‘This is Her domain.’

‘No, that wasn’t what I meant. Why am I not dead?’

‘Not because of us,’ the creature said. ‘We wanted you to die.’ The heads snaked around him, golden scowls and bared fangs. ‘You took our head. You destroyed our temple. You took the tome. You ruined everything. We wanted you to drown, to die, to be eaten by tiny little fish over a thousand years.’

‘And yet … here we are,’ he said, no room in the depths for fear.

‘We were overruled.’

‘By whom?’

The heads glanced at each other, then at Lenk, then through Lenk. He felt himself turning, spinning gently in the halo as unseen hands turned him upside down to face the sea floor. He stared for a moment and saw nothing.

And then, he saw teeth.

He tried to count them at a glance, absently, and found the task tremendous enough to make his head hurt. Rows upon rows of them opened, splitting the endless sandy floor into a tremendous smile.

‘Lenk.’ They loosed a voice, deep and feminine. ‘Hello.’

He stared into the void between them, vast and endless.

‘Hello,’ he replied, ‘Ulbecetonth.’

It laughed. No, he thought, it’s a she. And her voice was far more pleasant and matronly than a demon’s ought to be, he decided. Then again, he only knew the one. It was a comforting warmth, a blanket of sound that soothed the ache in his head, banished chill from his body.

He remembered this voice.

‘You’re not real, are you?’ he asked the teeth. ‘You’re in my head, just like your voice was.’

‘Voices inside your head can be entirely real,’ Ulbecetonth replied. ‘Have you not learned this by now?’

‘It’s simply a form of madness.’

‘If you hear voices, you’re mad. If you talk back, it’s something far worse.’

‘Point,’ he replied. ‘So are you real, then? Or am I dead?’ He glanced around the shadows. ‘Is this-?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘This is a far too pleasant to be hell; your hell, anyway. Murderers of children go to far darker, far deeper places.’

‘I have killed no-’

‘I told you to stop,’ the teeth said, twisting into a frown. ‘I begged you to spare my children. You killed them, regardless. Both of you.’

‘There was only one of me.’

‘There is never only one of you.’

He took in a deep breath that he should not have been able to.

‘You’ve heard it, then?’

‘Many times,’ she replied. ‘I remember your voice well. Both of them. I heard them many times during the war that cast my family into shadow. I heard them on blades that were driven into my children’s flesh. I heard them on flames that burned my followers alive in their sacred places. When I heard them in your head again …’

The teeth snapped shut with the sound of thunder, sending his bones rattling. The echo lasted for an age, after which it took another for him to muster the nerve to speak.

‘Then I ask again, why am I alive?’

‘Pity, mostly,’ Ulbecetonth said. ‘I have seen your thoughts, your desires, your cruelties and your pains. I have seen what you have. I have seen what you want. I know that you will never have it and it moved me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You do,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to, though. We both know this. We both know you desire something resembling peace: sinful earth to put your feet on, blasphemous fire to warm your hands by, a decaying thing of tainted breath and aging flesh to call your own. But not just any flesh …’

‘I’ve heard this rhetoric before,’ he snapped back, finding resolve somewhere within himself. ‘They say that I’m mad to want her.’

‘And we have established that you are not mad,’ she replied smoothly. ‘You are something worse, and that is why you cannot have-’

‘Her?’

‘Any of it. Your earth will always be soaked in blood. Your fire will always carry the scent of death. There will be many things made of flesh that you call your own, but they will all die, and before they do, they will look into your eyes and see what I have heard in your head.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘You don’t want to admit it. I cannot blame you. Nor can my conscience let you cling to harmful delusion.’

In his mind flashed the ship, the fire, his companions. He saw the dragonman who had leapt into the water after sparing him a glance. He saw the wizard who took off without even looking in his direction. He didn’t see the rogue and the priestess, for they never so much as looked at him before they disappeared. Those were fleeting, though.

The eyes, the emerald stare that had seeped into his, and then turned away …

That image lingered.

‘She left me,’ he whispered. ‘She looked into my eyes … and left me to die.’

‘It hurts. I know.’ Ulbecetonth’s voice brimmed with sympathy, sounding as though she might be on the verge of tears if she were more than just teeth. ‘To see those who you once loved betray you, to know the sorrow that comes with abandonment. I’ve seen the fear grow inside you. I know the times you felt like weeping and could not. I wept for you, despite your countless sins against me. I saw your grief and your sorrow and knew I could not give you the death you deserved. Not now.’

‘What?’ he asked, shaking the images from his eyes.

‘I am offering you a generosity,’ Ulbecetonth said. ‘Return to your world of petty sea and envious earth. Forget about my children, as surely as we will forget about you. Go elsewhere and cling to fire and stone and whatever flesh makes you happy. Find someone else to kill. Your voice will be satisfied all the same.

‘Between the longfaces and the Shen,’ she continued, ‘I have far too many enemies for my liking. The green heathens are an ancient enemy. The purple ones serve a foe older still. I have no need or wish to worry about a misguided creature with misguided desires. Take my offer. Leave these waters. I will not try to stop you. I will never again speak your name if I can help it. You need never feel the anguish you felt tonight again. All you need do … is leave.’

‘I can’t leave,’ he whispered, shaking his head. ‘There’s more to do. The tome …’

‘Will be safe, its terrible knowledge far from any who would use it for ill.’

‘In your hands?’ he asked. ‘That’s not right. Your Abysmyths-’

‘My children,’ she snapped back, ‘are without their mother. They long for family, for my influence. They seek to use the book to return me to their embrace. Afterwards, we will have no further use for it or for bloodshed. Let us live in peace beneath the waves. Forget about us.’

‘All you want … is your family?’

‘What does any mother want?’

‘But Miron said-’

‘PRIESTS LIE.’

The ocean quaked. Sand stirred below; light fled above. The song of the creatures died. The swimming frogmen vanished into engulfing shadows. Corpses fell like lead; wood fell upon them in cairns. Lenk felt his breath