Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

‘Where is it?’ they asked. ‘Where is the end? Where are the Gods? Where is the mercy?’

‘Sea Mother,’ the man began babbling a prayer, ‘benevolent matron, bountiful provider, blessed watcher. Wash my sins away on the sand, deliver me to my-’

‘NO!’

The Abysmyth’s howl echoed across the sea, across the sky. The Omens recoiled, fluttering off their branches to hover ponderously for a moment before settling back down. The demon’s black hand trembled as it pointed a claw at the pirate.

‘No blasphemies,’ it uttered, ‘no distractions.’ It shook its great head. ‘There is but one Mother here, one who may provide you with the mercy you seek.’ Its hand lurched forwards, seizing the pirate’s other arm. ‘Can you not see the truth I seek to give you? Can you not see what woe you wreak upon the world?’

‘Can you not?’ the Omens muttered. ‘Can you not see?’

‘The way becomes clear,’ the demon nodded, ‘with suffering to guide your path.’

Lenk grimaced at the sound of ripping, turned away at the sound of meat sliding along the sand, closed his ears to the sound of the man’s shrieking. It was too much.

‘Don’t bother,’ the voice replied, effortlessly heard over the pirate’s agony, ‘he made his path, chose his destiny. He deserves not our aid.’

‘He doesn’t deserve this,’ Lenk all but whimpered.

‘His sins will be washed clean in the demon’s blood. Now, patience.’

‘Can you hear it now?’ The Abysmyth pulled the man up, bringing him to eye level. ‘Can you hear Her wondrous song? How it calls to you. . how I envy you to hear it for the first time. Let Her hear your joy in the whisper of your tears.’

‘Let Her.’ The Omens giggled. ‘She hears all, She delights in your discovery and Her song shall guide you.’

‘Do you hear it?’ The Abysmyth shook the man slightly. ‘Do you?’

There was nothing left to drain from him, however, no more agony upon his face, no more pain to leak from his stumps. He merely dangled there, mouth agape, eyes barely open. Only the glimmer behind them told Lenk that he was still alive, only the shine of what once had been hope, snuffed out. The Cragsman’s lips quivered, mouthing soundless words to him.

Kill me, he pleaded silently, please.

‘So,’ Gariath muttered, ‘what was it?’

Dreadaeleon glanced up at the dragonman, licking his lips as he finished slurping a liquid from a tin cup.

‘What was what?’

‘What called you?’

‘Ah.’ The boy’s eyes lit up. ‘It was actually quite interesting. I’m surprised you’re curious.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then why did you ask?’

‘Because,’ the dragonman replied, ‘if it calls to you again, I plan to kill you before you can do something stupid. To that end, I’d like to know what to listen for so I can act before you do.’

‘Pragmatic.’ The boy inclined his head. ‘The truth is, I’m not entirely sure. It was something of a song without words, music without notes.’ He paused, straining to think. ‘Flatulence without smell? No, no, it was purely auditory.’ His nostrils quivered. ‘It occurs to me, though, I’d think you could smell whatever it was long before I heard it.’

‘Your thinking tends to be brief and often fleeting,’ Gariath grunted. ‘I can’t smell anything with you drinking that bile.’ He pointed to the tin cup clenched in the boy’s hands as Dreadaeleon squeezed his waterskin over it. ‘What is it, anyway? It smells like bat dung.’

‘It is.’ Dreadaeleon took a brief sip. ‘Some of it, anyway, mixed with the diluted sap of several trees, primarily willow, a few pinches of a powder you’re better off not knowing the name of and a drop of liquor, usually a form of brandy or whiskey, for kick.’

‘Why drink it?’

‘It eases my headaches.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Gariath scowled at the boy. ‘And the bat dung?’

Dreadaeleon smacked his lips thoughtfully. ‘Flavour.’

Gariath’s eyes glowered, muscles quivering with restrained fury. For a moment, a thought occurred to him, as it often had throughout his company with the humans, that this might be the sign he was waiting for. This might be the one act that indicated that these meagre, scrawny creatures had finally done something so deranged that they needed to be put down like the crazed animals they were.

‘What?’ Dreadaeleon asked, unaware of how close he was to having his head smashed in.

Not today, Gariath thought, easing his arm rigidly against his side. If you get his blood on you, you won’t be able to follow the scent. Later, maybe, but not now. Bearing that thought as a burden, he snorted and turned about, continuing to stalk down the beach.

‘Where are we going, anyway?’

‘There has never been a “we”,’ Gariath growled. ‘There is “I”, who stands, and “you”, who gets in the way.’

‘Right.’ Dreadaeleon nodded. ‘“We.”’

‘“We” would imply that I and you are on the same standing. ’ He turned about, making a spectacle of his toothy grimace. ‘We are not.’

‘In that case, where are you going?’

Just tell him, the dragonman told himself. If he finds out it’s a long way to go, maybe he’ll collapse from the thought of so much effort. Maybe then the tide will come in and drown him. He grinned at that. Then his stink won’t be a nuisance and Lenk won’t have anything to complain about.

‘I’m following a scent,’ he finally told the boy.

‘Food?’ Dreadaeleon asked.

‘No.’

‘Water?’

‘No.’

‘Other dragonmen?’

Gariath stopped in his tracks, his back stiffening. Slowly, with a look of violation flashing in his black eyes, he turned to regard Dreadaeleon.

‘You’re using magic on me,’ he snarled, ‘trying to read my thoughts.’

‘Telepathy,’ Dreadaeleon corrected. ‘And I’m not, no. I couldn’t with my headache, at least.’ He beamed a self-satisfied smile that begged all on its own to be cracked open like a nut. ‘I simply used inference.’

‘Inference.’

‘The act of-’

‘I know what it means.’

‘Ah.’ The boy nodded. ‘Of course. I simply meant that, given the way you seem to be sniffing at the air, there’s only a few things you could possibly be seeking. Common beasts, with their advanced senses of smell, usually only seek food, water or mates.’

‘Clever,’ Gariath grunted. ‘Very clever.’

‘I thought so.’

‘Aside from one fact.’ He held up a single clawed finger. ‘This particular finger is one of five, which belong to one hand of two, which is the exact same number of feet I have, all of which I’ve used to split the skulls of, rip the arms off, smash the ribs of and commit other unpleasantries upon,’ he jabbed the boy, sending him back a step, ‘humans much smaller than you who called me much kinder things than a common beast.’

Dreadaeleon’s eyes went wide with a certain kind of fear that Gariath had seen often in him. With predictable frequency the boy, for he was nothing more than a boy, constantly realised he was not the man he pretended to be. Such a reaction was usually caused by his conversations with the tall, brown-haired human woman or with the taller, red-skinned dragonman. Such reactions, too, frequently had visceral effects.

‘I. . I didn’t. . I mean, I don’t want to-’

Stammering.

‘It wasn’t my intention-’ Dreadaeleon shifted his gaze from the dragonman.

Looking at the ground like a whelp.

‘You must believe me-’ The boy’s knees began to knock.

‘I do,’ Gariath interrupted.

Though he hated to admit it to himself, there was a certain gruesome pride that came with making a human soil himself, but such reactions were reserved for times when he wasn’t on the hunt. Human urine was filthy, yellow and filled with the stinks of liquor. He couldn’t imagine a bat-dung drink smelling any better coming out.

The boy’s sigh, so heavy with relief, did not serve to strengthen Gariath’s faith in the human bladder. Rolling his eyes along with his shoulders, he turned about and began to stalk further down the beach.

‘Well, can I help?’

‘There’s a lot of things you can help,’ Gariath growled in reply, ‘such as your belief that I want to hear you any more.’

‘I meant can I help you find whatever it is you’re looking for?’ Dreadaeleon scurried to keep up with the dragonman’s great strides. ‘I’m not bad with scrying.’

‘With what?’

‘Scrying. Divination.’ He beamed so proudly that Gariath could feel the boy’s smile searing his back. ‘You know, the Art of Seeking. Amongst the wizards of the Venarium, it’s not considered worthy of much more beyond a few weeks of study, but it has its uses.’

Gariath paused, his ear-frills twitching slightly.

‘Magic,’ he uttered, ‘can find lost things?’

‘Most lost things, yes.’

When the dragonman turned to face Dreadaeleon, the boy no longer saw Gariath as he remembered him. In the span of a single turn, the red-skinned brute’s face had shifted dramatically. Wrinkles, once seemingly perpetually carved into his face by an equally perpetual rage, had smoothed out. His lips had descended from their high-set snarl to hide his teeth.

Before, Dreadaeleon had never seen anything within his companion’s eyes, so narrow and black had they been. Now they were wide, so wide as to glisten with something other than restrained — or unrestrained — fury, and they stared at him from a finger’s length away.

‘How does it work?’ Gariath growled.

‘Um, well. .’ The boy struggled for words in the face of this new, slightly less reptilian face. ‘It’s a relatively simple art, which, as I suggested, is what places it so low upon the Hierarchy of Magic.’ He began to count off his skinny fingers. ‘The first of which being the Five Noble Schools: fire, ice, electricity, force and-’

‘Tell me how it works.’

Gariath did not demand, not with any great anger, at least. His tone was so gentle and soft that Dreadaeleon blinked, taken aback.

‘I just need a focus,’ he replied as confidently as he could, ‘something that belonged to the Rhega.’

Gariath’s face twitched. ‘Something that belonged to the Rhega.’

‘Right.’ Dreadaeleon nodded, daring a smile. ‘So long as I have something to focus on, something that bears the Rhega’s signature, it should lead us to more Rhega.’

‘As simple as that?’

‘Just so.’

Dreadaeleon barely had any time to close his eyes before the fist came crashing into his face. His teeth rattled in his skull, chattering against each other like a set of crude ivory chimes. His coat-tails fluttered behind him like dirty brown wings as he sailed through the air before striking the sand, gouging a shallow trench with the force of his skid before finally coming to an undignified halt.