Black Halo

‘And I’m sure you’re telling the truth,’ she replied snidely. ‘Because, as we all know, only reasonable hairless freaks chase young girls through alleys with knives, screaming like lunatics.’

‘I left the knife in the house,’ he said. ‘My house.’

‘Not fair,’ she snapped back. ‘Squatters can’t claim the houses. It’s a rule.’

‘I’m not a squatter. I used to live there.’

‘Liar.’

‘What?’

‘If you used to live there, you’d be a Tohana man. If you were a Tohana man, you’d be like me.’ She tapped her dark-skinned brow. ‘I’m not quite convinced that you aren’t some kind of shaved ape.’

‘I could have been from another nation,’ he pointed out.

‘If you were, you’d have been rich and you wouldn’t live in a little shack.’ She eyed him carefully. ‘So … who are you?’

‘There is no good answer to that.’

‘Then give me a bad one.’

He glanced from her to the pool. ‘I lived here with my family once. They’re dead now.’

‘That’s not a bad answer,’ she replied. ‘Not a good one, either. Lots of people have dead families. That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.’

He knew he shouldn’t answer. What would be the point? When the Father was freed, people would die. That was inevitable. How could he possibly tell her this? There was no need for him to even look at her, he knew. He didn’t have to kill her or anything similar. All he need do was open the vial, pour the Milk into the water, free the Father. It didn’t even need to be poured — he could just hurl the whole thing in and the objective would be achieved.

Change would come.

People would die.

He had tried to bite back his memories, to quash the pain that welled up inside him. He had served the Prophet to achieve oblivion, as the rest of the blessed had. And yet, gazing upon the girl roused memory in him, nurturing instincts that he had not felt since he sat beside a small cot and told stories.

Chief among these was the instinct to lie.

‘I’m here to help,’ he said.

‘Help?’

‘This city was my home once. I raised a child here. I want to help it return to its former glory.’

‘Glory?’ She raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘Prosperity?’

‘Eh …’

‘Stability, then,’ he said. ‘I’m going to change this city.’

‘How?’

He smiled at her. ‘I’ll start with the people.’

She stared at him for a moment, and as he gazed upon her expression, he knew an instinctual fear. Doubt. It was painted across her unwashed face in premature wrinkles and sunburned skin. It was the expression of someone who had heard promises before and knew, in whatever graveyard inside of her that innocence went to die, that some lies, no matter how nurturing, were simply lies.

He had seen that expression only once before. He remembered it well.

And then, her face nearly split apart with her grin.

‘That’s pretty stupid,’ she said. ‘I like it. I don’t believe it, but I like it.’

‘Now, why wouldn’t you believe it?’ He grinned back. ‘If a shaven monkey can sneak into a temple unseen, why wouldn’t he be able to change people?’

‘Because everyone tells the same story. I’m too old to believe it now.’

‘How old?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Kasla,’ she said, smiling. ‘What’s yours?’

He opened his mouth to speak, and the moment he did, her grin vanished, devoured by the expression of fear and panic that swallowed her face. He quirked a brow at her as she turned and fled, scampering behind a pillar and disappearing into the shadows of the temple. He was about to call after her when he heard the voice.

‘I’m not going to ask how you got in.’

He turned and saw the priest, portly, moustached and clad in fraying robes. The man eased the door shut behind him, making a point of patting the lock carefully. He turned to face the Mouth, his dark face dire.

‘I’m not going to ask who you were talking to,’ he said, taking a step forward. ‘Nor will I inquire what you’re doing here. I already know that.’ A hand slipped inside his robe. ‘All I wish to know is how a servant of Ulbecetonth thought he could walk in my city-’

His hand came out, clenching a chain from which a symbol dangled: a gauntlet clenching thirteen obsidian arrows. Mesri held it before him like a lantern, regarding the Mouth evenly.

‘-without a member of the House knowing.’

The Mouth tensed, precariously aware of his position by the pool. He glanced down, all too aware of the vial clenched in his hand. He looked back to Mesri, painfully aware that he hadn’t thrown it in yet.

‘How much else do you know?’ he whispered.

‘Only what you do,’ Mesri replied. ‘We both know what’s imprisoned beneath this city. We both know you’re carrying the key to that abomination’s release.’

‘The Father is-’

‘An abomination,’ Mesri insisted. ‘A beast that lives only to kill, only to destroy in the name of a cause that exists only to do more of the same. We both know that if he is released, that’s all we’ll see. Death. Destruction.’ He stared at the Mouth intently. ‘And yet … we both know you’ve had opportunities in abundance to do so. And we both know you haven’t.

‘This is where my knowledge ends,’ Mesri said. ‘Why?’

‘Just …’ The Mouth hesitated, cursing himself for it. ‘I’m just taking my time, making certain that when the change comes, when the Father is freed, he-’

‘Stop,’ Mesri commanded. ‘I know now why you haven’t thrown it in.’ His stare went past the Mouth’s hairless flesh, plumbing something darker, deeper. It seized something inside him that was supposed to have been starved to death, banished into gloom. It seized that thing within him and drew it out. ‘We both know.’

The Mouth cringed, turning away from the man’s gaze.

‘What I want to know is why,’ Mesri said. ‘Why you turned to the Kraken Queen and her empty promises.’

‘Mother Deep’s promises are not empty,’ the Mouth hissed back. ‘She demands servitude. She demands penance. Only then are the faithful rewarded.’

‘With?’

‘Absolution,’ the Mouth said, a long smile tugging at the corners of his lips. ‘Freedom from the sin of memory, oblivion from the torments of the past, salvation from the torture inflicted upon us by the Gods.’

‘The benevolent matron does not demand,’ Mesri retorted. ‘The benevolent matron does not reward you by stealing what makes you human.’

‘I am not human,’ the Mouth snarled, holding up his webbed fingers. ‘Not anymore. I am something greater. Something advanced enough to see the hypocrisy within you.’ He narrowed his eyes to thin slits. ‘You speak of benevolence, of rewards. What has your goddess brought you?’

The Mouth gestured wildly to the statue of Zamanthras, her smug stone visage and self-satisfied stone smile.

‘Your city is in decay! Your people lie ill and dying! The seas themselves have abandoned you!’

‘Because of your matron,’ Mesri snapped back. ‘The fish flee because they sense her stirring. Your presence here confirms that.’