Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

Someone behind him screamed, told him to put the book down, but he could not will his hand to do so. Even as they made less and less sense, flipping viciously through his mind, the lines began to take a shape. He blinked, and with each passing moment, they continued to form a shape. It was horrible, yet he could not turn his head away, could not shut his eyes. He was forced to stare.

The book looked back at him.

The book smiled.

‘NO!’

The book snapped shut. His fingers tensed involuntarily around it as the frigid howl reverberated through his head, coating his skull with a vocal rime. He dropped it then, watching it splash in a pink puddle. The liquid did not pool beneath it.

‘Something,’ the voice uttered, ‘is coming.’

Before Lenk could think, a howl filled the air. His eyes rose at the noise, spying the pale creatures as they clustered together at the railing. Standing above them, perched on the ship’s edge and clinging to the railing, the tallest of the invaders pressed a conch shell to its lips. Its chest expanded with breath, then shrank as a wailing exhale cut the air.

Voices rose from behind him, excited warnings to the sky. Lenk saw it: the clouds moved suddenly, twisting and shifting. They grew larger, shimmering with a dozen facets as they descended in great drifts.

The sky, it seemed, was falling.

They descended in ominous unity, a flock of frenzied feathers and bulbous blue orbs, to land upon the masts and rigging and railings of the Riptide. Lenk watched them, spellbound by their harmony as they settled. Plump bodies covered with feathers, sagging, fleshy faces dominated by two great blue eyes.

How many? He could not find an answer; they seemed to be endless, lines of ruffling, cooing birds. Seagulls? No, he told himself, seagulls didn’t sit and stare with unblinking eyes. Seagulls didn’t gather in such numbers.

Seagulls didn’t have long, needle-like teeth in place of beaks.

What, he asked himself, are they?

‘Harbingers.’ Miron’s sneering disgust answered his thoughts. ‘The book, Lenk! Seize the book! Keep it away from those monstrosities!’

‘What are you gentlemen doing?’ Rashodd bellowed from the deck, still wrestling with Gariath. ‘Your master requires aid!’

‘These ones no longer require that one,’ the creature with the conch said, levelling a finger at the Cragsman. ‘These ones have found the tome they seek.’

‘What tome?’ All semblance of composure vanished from the captain. ‘I ordered you to take no tome!’

‘No, that one did not,’ the frogman replied, glowering at the captain. ‘Yet that one is not this one’s master.’

‘What in all hell are you-’

Before Rashodd could find the words for his fury, the timbers quaked with sudden, violent force. Another series of gasps coursed through the crowd, hands tightening around weapons as eyes went wide with bewilderment.

Something had just struck the ship.

Distantly, where wood met froth, the hull groaned ominously. The deck shook once more, shifting to one side, sending sailors and defenders alike struggling to keep their footing. An eternity seemed to pass between sounds of wood splintering, punctuated by further wooden whines as something from below crawled up the hull.

The pale creatures whirled, suddenly heedless of the others behind them, the prize they had lost upon the ground. As a single unit of pasty skin and scrawny legs, they collapsed to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the salt of the deck.

All save one.

‘Speak not in the Shepherd’s presence,’ the conch-blower uttered, its eyes on Lenk. ‘Dare no movement, dare no impure thought. Be content in salvation.’ Its finger trembled as he pointed. ‘For that one has seen much purity.’

The ship listed further. Men stepped backwards, caught between the struggle to get away from the railing and to stay on their shifting feet.

And then, all were still; no sound, no movement. Only the groan of wood and the death of wind.

Screams were frozen in throats, hands quaking about weapons, unblinking eyes forced to the edge of the ship. From over the side, an immense, webbed appendage dotted with curling claws and wrapped in skin the colour of shadow reached up to cling to the railing. The wood splintered with the force of the grip, threatening to be crushed as the arm, emaciated and clad in painfully stretched flesh, tensed.

‘Sweet Khetashe,’ Lenk whispered breathlessly.

With one great effort, the clawed limb pulled the rest of the creature up from the hull and turned the sailors’ anxious terror to panic as a great monstrosity landed upon the deck with enough force to crack wood beneath two massive webbed feet.

It stood more than ten feet tall, dwarfing any creature present with its emaciated, ebon-skinned splendour. Attached to a torso of flesh drawn cruelly tight over a long ribcage were two arms and legs, both longer than spears, jointed in four places and ending in great, webbed claws.

All its thin, underfed horror was nothing compared to the monument atop its long neck. Massive, almost the size of its painfully visible ribcage, resembling the head of a rotted fish, the thing regarded the crew through vast, unblinking eyes: frigid white pools dominated by great blots of darkness. Its wide, toothy maw stretched its entire face to the point of agony, its lower jaw hanging slack. More than one man present retched, cringed or added a distinct yellow tinge to the grisly paint upon the deck as the creature’s mouth swung open to speak.

‘Where does the salvation lie?’ Its voice was lilting, gurgling, the sounds of drowning men. ‘Where can it be?

‘There, Shepherd.’

Lenk saw their fingers, pale little digits pointed to the deck right at his feet. He glanced down at the tome for only a moment as it lay in a dry space with nothing but wet about it. His attention was then torn upwards once more as he felt the timbers quake beneath his feet.

The thing walked towards him in a loping, unhurried gait. He could see every webbed claw settle into the wood as it set a foot down, see the water cling to its black soles as it raised a foot up.

Was it aware of the fear it inspired? Lenk wondered. Was it aware that there had been so much blood spilled and so many bodies falling just moments ago? Was anyone else still aware? He could feel their frozen presence behind him, feel the ripple of air as they quivered, feel the breath of whimpered prayers.

Were they aware of him, he wondered, or did they merely see a tiny silver shadow before a looming tower of gloom?

‘The tome!’ Miron’s shout was fading, softened by the terrified silence. ‘Get the tome!’

By the time Lenk realised there was a world beyond the creature looming before him, the tome was ensconced in webbed claws, examined by empty eyes. It did not blink, did not so much as scowl; whatever it saw in Lenk, Lenk could not see in it.

‘Is it tempting? Is it envious?’ The abomination’s voice was incapable of softness, boiling up in its flabby throat like vocal bile. ‘Curious. . and envious, both. The temptation is great to look within and muse on the salvation that lies beneath man-wrought covers.’

‘Temptation is strong.’ The rotund, feathered creatures chanted in horrifying unison. ‘Flesh is weak. Shelter in salvation. Salvation in the Shepherd.’

The black monstrosity leaned down, looking Lenk squarely in the eyes.

‘And yet. . is it more faithful to keep eyes chaste, minds pure?’

‘Chastity leads to the endless blue,’ the chorus above chanted. ‘Blessed is the pure mind.’

Its arm extended, reached out to touch the deck as the thing remained unbent and Lenk remained unmoving. It reached over him and he heard its joints pop into place with greasy ease. The warning cries that had been at his back were quiet; all was quiet save for the shifting of the creature as it plucked the book’s silk covering from the water.

‘It is,’ it continued, drawing its great arm back, ‘for there is nothing without faith, no hope without chastity.’ Like a great, bony crane, the thing dipped its hand, replacing the book into the silk pouch. ‘And such great beauty must be kept only for eyes as beautiful.’

Lenk hadn’t even noticed the pale creature scurrying up beside the abomination, now accepting the tome with eager hands.

‘Is it not so?’ The creature did not wait for answer from itself, Lenk or its aide. Without another movement, it gurgled to the pale invader beside it. ‘Go.’

‘Fools!’ Miron cried, though no one seemed to hear him. No one noticed the frogmen retreating, ambling from their prostrate circle and over the railing of the ship, to land in the salt with muted splashes.

No one could see anything beyond the stake of darkness that had impaled the heart of the deck.

‘There is no escape from envy,’ the creature gurgled, staring down at Lenk, ‘however base a sensation it may feel. But to tolerate it. . feel it and let it live, that is inexcusable in the eyes of Mother.’

‘Move.’

He wished he could; the voice was so distant, drowned in the echo of the abomination’s gurgle. Between them, the frost and the shadow, he was smothered, frozen, unaware of the glistening black claw reaching down as though it intended to pluck a flower.

‘MOVE!’

‘Understand,’ the thing gurgled, ‘this is simply how it must be.’

‘How it must end,’ the chorus agreed with bobbing heads.

When the blackness of the thing’s hand had completely engulfed his sight, he felt it. A roar tore the sky apart, ripping through the air as it ripped through Lenk. The creature’s hand wavered for a moment, the field of black broken by a sudden flash of angry red, the smothering echo of its voice shattered by thunder.

Gariath struck the creature with all the force of a battering ram, leathery wings flapping to propel his horned head into its ribcage. The abomination staggered, but did not fall. It gurgled, but did not scream. Gashes formed in its chest as it took a great step backwards … but it did not bleed.

It doesn’t bleed.

He was reminded, however, that he did, as the dragonman’s knuckles cracked against his cheek. Whatever else had lingered inside him was banished in a fit of bloody-nosed rage as he turned a scowl upon his companion.

‘What was that for?’

‘Just checking,’ the dragonman grunted back.

Lenk blinked as a glob of red-tinged phlegm dripped down his face.

‘For what?’

‘Huh.’ Gariath shrugged. ‘I didn’t think I’d have to follow that up with a reason.’ He held up a scarred hand to prevent protest. ‘If it makes you feel better, say I was checking if you were too busy soiling yourself to fight.’

‘I wasn’t-’

‘Then what were you doing?’

Lenk opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He was muted, blinded, deafened all at once as the images flashed through his head again, the words echoing in his ears: the portraits in the book’s pages, the smile across the parchment, ‘salvation’, ‘MOVE!’ He found himself dizzy suddenly, but dared not sway, lest he find Gariath performing another check-up.