Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

Lenk was no longer even aware of her speaking, no longer aware of the dryness of his unblinking eyes or his slightly open mouth.

After a leather-smothered eternity, the bead reappeared just beneath the hem of her garment, settling at the base of her sternum like a glistening star of hope. It quivered there in whimsical contemplation before sliding down the centre-line of her abdomen. It glided over the shadowed contours of her belly’s muscle, across each subtle curve as it journeyed ever downwards, his eyes following, unblinking.

Lenk was forced to swallow hard as it finally reached her navel, dangling off the upper lip like some silvery stalactite, quivering with each shallow breath, each tug of her taut stomach, each breath he unconsciously sent its way, growing heavier. It glistened there, stark against the shadow of the oval-shaped depression before something happened. One of them breathed too hard, flinched too noticeably, and the bead quivered once.

Then fell.

It struck his lap with the quietest of splashes, leaving a dark stain upon the dirt of his trousers. Only when its silver ceased to sparkle did he finally blink, did he finally realise what he had just been staring at for so long.

He stiffened, starting up with an incomprehensible grunt. His head struck something and Kataria echoed his noise, recoiling and rubbing her chin. Eyes bewildered, like a startled beast, she regarded him irately.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘What?’ he echoed in a shrill, dry crack.

She blinked. ‘I. . didn’t say anything.’ Tilting her head, her expression changed to one of concern. ‘Did I hit a nerve or something?’

‘Yeah.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘A nerve or something.’

She nodded silently, but offered no response. At least, he thought, no decent response. She spoke no more, did not so much as twitch as she reclined onto her haunches and stared. He cleared his throat, making a point of looking down at the deck, hoping she would lose interest in him and find something else to do.

He had been hoping that for the year he had known her.

Kataria, however, had never found anything else to do besides follow him. She had never met anyone else in all their travels worth sparing a second glance for. She had never stopped staring.

He cleared his throat again, more loudly. It was all he could do; if he chased her away, she would stare from afar. If he asked what she found so interesting, she would not answer. If he struck her when his temper got the better of his patience, she would strike back, harder. Then keep staring.

She would always stare. He would always feel her eyes.

‘Something’s on your mind.’

Kataria’s voice sounded off. Distant, but painfully close, hissed directly into his ear through a wall of glass. He gritted his teeth, shook his head, before turning to regard her. She was still staring, eyes flashing with an expression he couldn’t understand at that moment.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

You, he wanted to say, I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of your stink and how bad you smell and how I can’t stop smelling you. I’m thinking of how you keep staring at me and how I never say anything about it and I don’t know why. I’m thinking of you staring at me and why someone’s screaming at me inside my head and how someone’s screaming inside my head and why it seems odd that I’m not worried about that.

He wanted to say that.

‘Today,’ was all he said instead.

She nodded, rising up from her knees. She extended a hand and he took it, hauled himself to his feet with her help.

‘It’s something to worry about, isn’t it?’

Really? Worried? Why would we be worried? A man drowns on dry land at the hands of something that shouldn’t exist and we should be worried? You’re a reeking genius.

‘Uh-huh,’ he nodded.

‘You almost died.’

It occurred to him that he should be more offended by the casual observation of her tone.

‘It happens.’ It occurred to him that this was not a normal answer for anyone else.

She continued to stare at him. This time, he did not look away, absorbed instead by the reflection in her eyes. Behind him, the sun was setting over the bobbing husk of the Linkmaster, painting the sky a muted purple, the colour of a bruise. Above him, the stars were beginning to peer, content to emerge after gulls had been chased away. Before him, the world existed only in her eyes, all the silver, purples and reds drowned in the endless emerald of her stare.

‘You’re staring,’ she noted, the faintest of smiles tugging at the corners of her lips.

‘I am.’ He straightened up, painfully aware that he was barely any taller than she was. He cleared his throat, puffing his chest out. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘I don’t need to do anything about it,’ she replied smugly. ‘Stare as much as you want. I know I’m something of a marvel to behold to beady little human eyes.’

‘My eyes aren’t beady.’ He resisted the urge to narrow said orbs in irritation.

‘They are beady. Your hair is stringy, and you’re short and wiry.’

‘Well, you smell.’

‘Is that so?’ She reached out and gave him a playful shove. ‘And what do I smell like?’

‘Like Gar-’ He hesitated, a better insult coming to mind. He returned the shove with a smug smirk of his own. ‘Like Denaos.’

Her own stare grew a little beadier at that. Snarling, she shoved him once more.

‘Recant.’

‘No.’ He shoved her back. ‘You recant.’

‘Who’s going to make me? Some runt with the hair of an old man?’

‘Make you? I couldn’t make you bathe, much less recant.’ He leaned forwards, making certain he could see the edge of his sneer in her eyes. ‘Besides, what do the words of a savage matter to anyone?’

‘They apparently mean enough to force a walking disease to put up some pitiful display of false bravado.’ Her sneer matched his to a precise, hideous crinkling of the lip. ‘If they don’t matter to you, why don’t you back away?’

‘I don’t show my back to savages.’

‘Shicts don’t squirm at stoop-spined swallows struggling to strut.’

‘I don’t. .’ He blinked. ‘Wait. . what?’

She smiled and shrugged. ‘So my father taught me.’

He smiled at that. Beneath him, his foot twitched, brushing against hers, and he became aware of how close they stood. He felt the heat of her breath, felt her ears twitch at every beat of his heart, as though she heard past all the grime caking him, all the flesh surrounding him, heard him function at his core.

‘Back away,’ he whispered, heedless of the lack of breath in his voice.

Her foot did not move. The wind moaned between them, singing a dirge for the dead that went unappreciated. As if in spite, the tiny breeze cut across them and sent their locks of silver and gold whipping across their faces. Between them, though, the air remained unchanging. He could feel the subtle twist of heat as her chest rose with each breath, the cool shift as another bead of sweat formed upon the pale skin of her neck to begin a snaking path down her belly.

‘You back away,’ she muttered, her voice barely audible over the wind’s murmur.

The stars were out, unafraid. The sky was the deepest of bruises now. The clouds had long since slunk into black sails on far distant horizons. Behind Lenk, the sky met the sea and the world moved beneath them.

‘Last chance,’ he whispered.

Before Lenk, the world was eclipsed in two green suns above a pair of thin, parted lips.

‘Make me,’ she smiled.

There was a heartbeat shared between them.

‘Stop.’

His eyes snapped open wide. His neck became cold just as it had begun to shift forwards.

‘Staring at us.’

He didn’t hear the voice; he felt it, crawling across his brain on icicle fingers.

‘She’s staring at us.’

‘What’s wrong?’

Kataria’s ears went upright, sensing something. Could she hear it, he wondered, as it echoed inside his skull?

‘Stop,’ he repeated.

‘Make her stop.’

‘Stop,’ his voice became a whine.

‘Stop what?’

‘Make her stop!’

‘Stop!’

‘Stop what?’

‘MAKE HER STOP!’

‘STOP STARING AT US!’

The sailors glanced up from their routine, eyes suddenly quite wide as his scream carried across the corpses bobbing on the waves. They stared for only a moment before cringing as he turned around, clutching his head, before returning to their duties and taking a collective step away from his vicinity.

Kataria, however, did not look away.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Nothing’s wrong. I’m perfectly fine.’ The statement sounded less absurd in his head, but his brain was choked by frigid fingers, an echo reverberating off his skull. ‘Perfectly fine. Would you stop staring at me?’

She did not.

‘You’re not fine,’ she stated, her eyes boring past his hair and skin as if to peer at whatever rang in his head. ‘You just broke down screaming at me for no reason.’

‘There’s always a reason for me to be screaming,’ he growled. ‘Especially at you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Her gaze narrowed; no longer a probe but rather a weapon to stab him with.

‘What do you mean, “What’s that supposed to mean?” Isn’t it obvious? I was nearly killed today!’

And now I’m hearing voices in my head, he wanted to add, but did not.

‘You’re nearly killed almost every other day! So are all of us! We’re adventurers!’

Insanity isn’t common amongst adventurers.

‘We’re not supposed to nearly be killed by hideous things that can’t be harmed by steel and drown men on dry land! Moscoff-’

‘Mossud.’

‘Whatever his name was, he rammed the damn … that … thing through with a spear and it didn’t even flinch! Gariath and I threw everything we had at it and it didn’t budge! I …’ He stalled, then forced the words out through gritted teeth. ‘I looked into its eyes and I didn’t see anything.’ ‘And that’s why you went mad a moment ago?’

I went mad because I’m likely losing my mind.

‘And you feel that’s inappropriate?’ he asked with a sneer.

‘Slightly.’ She sighed, her shoulders sinking. ‘You meet one thing you can’t kill and this is how you react? Is it so hard to accept that some things exist that you simply can’t change? I would have thought you were used to it, being a-’

‘Human.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course. How could I not be used to such things, being a weak-willed, beady-eyed human?’