Black Halo

‘Where were you?’ Lenk asked.

‘Always with you.’

‘Then you saw … all that?’

‘Know what you know.’

‘Your thoughts?’

‘Our thoughts.’

‘You know what I meant.’

‘The point is no less valid. Nothing that has happened tonight was real.’

‘It seemed so-’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘How do you figure?’

‘For one, she’s dead. Fact.’

‘It’s a distinct possibility.’

‘A certainty. Listen to reason.’

‘Greenhair said she didn’t find any other bodies. It’s perfectly sane to believe the others might be alive.’

‘One would be hard-pressed to take advice on sanity from he who hears voices.’

‘Point.’

‘Referring to your dependence on them. Why bother insisting that they live?’

‘I … need them. They watch my back, help me during the hard times.’

‘We have each other.’

‘We have nothing but hard times.’

‘Their deaths are clearly a sign from heaven. We waste time and effort mourning them.’

‘No one’s mourning anyone yet. They could still be alive.’

‘We could be back in Toha right now if not for them, the book safe and away where it belongs and our body aching to wreak vengeance upon the next blight that stains the earth. They are a hindrance.’

‘No, they aren’t.’

‘It is them who needs us. They wouldn’t survive without us. They didn’t survive without us. They are useless.’

‘No, they aren’t!’

‘We have our duties. We have our blights to cleanse. The demons fear us, fear what we do to them. We were created to cleanse the earth of impurities. These companions can only be called thus because they were considerate enough to cleanse themselves for us. They’re better off dead.’

‘No, they aren’t!’

The last echoes of the voice vanished, forced out of his mind as he threw himself into a fervent rampage of thought. He sprang to his feet, began to pace back and forth, muttering to himself.

‘Think, think … you don’t need that thing. Think … it’s hard to think. So hot …’ He snarled, thumped his temple. ‘Think! This isn’t just fever causing the hallucinations. How do you know?’ He ran a finger at one of his scratches. ‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

‘No,’ he answered himself. ‘Nothing makes sense.’ He gritted his teeth, the effort of thought seeming to cause his brain to boil. ‘You were hallucinating strange things, thoughts that never occurred to you before. Why is that odd?

‘Because hallucinations are a product of the mind, are they not?’ He nodded vigorously to himself. ‘You can’t hallucinate something you don’t know, can you?’ He shook his head violently. ‘No, not at all. You can’t hallucinate monkeys with philosophical ideas or trees with latent desires for peace, or …

‘Kataria.’ He blinked, eyes sizzling with the effort. ‘She wasn’t wearing her leathers when you saw her. You’ve never seen her without them, have you? No, you haven’t. Well, maybe once, but you always think of her in them, don’t you?’ He threw his head back. ‘What does all this say to us? Hallucination of things that are not the product of your disease or your mind? Either you’re dead and this is some rather infinitely subtle and frustrating hell as opposed to the whole “lakes of fire and sodomised with a pitchfork” thing, or, much more likely …’

‘Someone else is inside your head.’

His breath went short at the realisation. The world seemed very cold at that moment.

He glanced down at the brook. Eyes cloudy with ice stared back. A thin, frozen sheet crowned the water. As he leaned down to inspect it, it grew harder, whiter, louder.

Ice doesn’t talk.

But this one did, voices ensconced between each crackling hiss as the frost formed thicker, denser. They spoke in hushes, as though they groaned from a place far below the ice, far below the earth. And they spoke in hateful, angry whispers, speaking of treachery, of distrust. He felt their loathing, their fury, but they spoke a language he only barely understood in fragments and whispers.

He stared intently, trying to make them out. There was desperation in them, as though they dearly wanted him to hear and would curse him with their hoary whispers if he didn’t expend every last ounce of his will to do so.

As far as events that made him question his sanity went, this one wasn’t the worst.

‘What?’ he whispered to it. ‘What is it?’

‘Survive,’ something whispered back.

‘Yo! Sa-klea!’

‘What?’ Lenk whispered.

‘Didn’t say anything,’ the voice replied.

‘Not you. The ice.’ He looked up, glancing about. ‘Or … someone.’

‘Dasso?’

‘Hide,’ Lenk whispered.

‘Sound advice,’ the voice agreed.

Too weary to run, Lenk limped behind a nearby rock, snatching up his sword as he did. No sooner had he pressed his belly against the forest floor than he saw the leaves of the underbrush rustle and stir.

Whatever emerged from the foliage did so with casual ease inappropriate for such dense greenery. Its features were indecipherable through the gloom, save for its rather impressive height and lanky, slightly hunched build.

Denaos? He quickly discounted that thought; the rogue wouldn’t enter so recklessly. Any further resemblance the creature might have borne to Lenk’s companion was banished as it set a long-toed, green foot into the moonlit clearing.

Even as it stepped fully into the light, Lenk was at a loss as to its identity. It stood tall on two long, thick legs, like a man, but that was all the resemblance to humanity it bore. Its scales, like tiny emeralds sewn together, were stretched hard over lean muscle, exposed save for the loincloth it wore at its hips, from which a long, lashing tail protruded.

Its head, large and reptilian, swung back and forth, two hard yellow eyes peering through the darkness; a limp beard of scaly flesh dangled beneath its chin. It held a spear, little more than a sharpened stick, in two clawed hands as it searched the night.

Suddenly, its gaze came to a halt upon Lenk’s hiding place. His blood froze; chilled for the stare, frigid for the sudden sight of red splotches upon its chest and hands.

If the creature saw Lenk, it gave no indication. Instead, it swivelled its head back to the underbrush and croaked out something in a gravelly, rasping voice.

‘Sa-klea,’ it hissed. ‘Na-ah man-eh heah.’

The brush rustled again and a second creature, nearly identical to the first, slinked out into the clearing. It swept its gaze about, scratched its scaly beard.

‘Dasso. Noh man-eh.’ It shook its head and sighed. ‘Kai- ja.’ It raised two fingers and pressed them against the side of its head in pantomime of ears as it