The Glass Breaks, page 16
“I sense too much,” he replied. “It’s as if we’re passing under a cloud. I’ve never felt anything like it.” He looked at me and I saw fear in his eyes. I’d known Jaxon all my life, and rarely seen him afraid. He played the part of a sensitive spirit-master, but he was as much a duellist as Arthur or myself. “Addie, I think we should leave.”
“Fuck off, Icicle,” said my brother. “I’ve yet to see anything worthy of fear. It’s all mist and mystery, nothing real.”
“If we leave, what do we tell Lord Ulric?” I asked. “Add that to my curiosity, and we have ample reason to push on. Let’s get to the large building and see what dwells within. If it’s just a dozen hybrids, we have little to worry about. But I won’t leave until I know if there is threat here. Can you tell me of a threat?”
“Nothing specific,” replied Jaxon. “But the void here scares me. It should scare you too.”
I moved away, cutting across another deserted intersection, and approaching the tall, central building. I also approached the coast, and the low wooden platforms that snaked towards the blocky structure in the bay. Even close to the water there was no-one abroad in the strange settlement, and we passed without impediment through empty streets of mud and stone. There were racks of fishing rods and splayed nets, long since abandoned and gone rotten. The jetty held splintered and broken boats, oars dangling in the water, hanging limply from their moorings.
Jaxon skipped silently next to me. “A sentry,” he whispered, casting his eyes upwards. I followed his gaze to an open window, two storeys from the ground, where stood a cloaked figure, looking out across the jetty. His form was bulbous, but blessedly obscured by fabric and shadow, though a hooked spear was visible in his flabby hands. He stood away from the hearths within, but directly in our path.
I nodded to my brother, and drew a fingertip across my lips to indicate silence. Arthur disappeared into a shadow at the base of the building, holding a heavy throwing knife across his chest. He moved to a good position opposite the sentry, but well hidden, and took aim, sighting along his arm. His throw was precise, striking the hybrid in the throat and sending him backwards with barely a grunt.
“We move,” I said, darting across the street to where the dead creature’s feet extended. Jaxon followed and pulled the corpse down from the open window, laying him in shadow and pushing back his cloak.
“Fuck me,” I exclaimed, as the frog-man was revealed. Arthur’s knife was wedged between rippling folds of flab, below a wide mouth and above a greasy chest. The creature’s eyes were wide, and bulged from distorted eye sockets. He was at least as grotesque as our captive at the Severed Hand, as much frog as he was man.
“See, a blade in the throat and they die like a pig at slaughter,” said Arthur.
“A lucky shot,” I replied. “An inch up or down and you’d have hit nothing but blubber.”
“What kind of weapon is this?” he asked, ignoring my assessment and inspecting the hybrid’s strange spear. It had a shaft of hard wood, wrapped in green twine, with a hooked blade at one end. He tested the edge and winced. “Damn, it’s sharp. Not steel, I don’t know what it is.”
“Ditch it with the body,” I said, helping Jaxon move the bulbous creature further into the shadows. “I don’t think the sun ever shines here, so it’ll remain hidden long enough.”
The Wisp frowned at me. “Let us hope we’re treated with similar reverence if we are to fall.” He wasn’t happy, but I didn’t want to take the time it would require to mollify him.
“Let’s see what is within,” I replied, frowning back at him.
Arthur threw the hooked spear onto the dead creature’s chest and led the way to the nearest source of light – a low window, emitting the same rusty glow as the previous building, and containing the same mismatched shutters. This time all three of us approached, looking into the large building through three separate slivers of light.
Within, our eyes were shown a great assembly of hybrids, each one more grotesque than the last. The curses, etched upon their flesh, ranged from simple bulging eyes and full lips, to those who were almost entirely frog-men. The more human-looking wore clothes and had thin, greasy hair; the more frog-like were bald and wore only robes, barely covering their bloated limbs and swollen bellies.
There were dozens of them, all removed from us, a good distance below street level, on a rotten wooden floor. They clustered around a circular well of thick granite blocks, poking up from the ground. Some – the most deformed – held hooked spears and stood around the edges of the chamber, while most crouched or squatted around the well. There were no interior walls or ceilings, and the building was hollow from the mouldy floor to the pointed rafters.
“Not an army,” I whispered. “Some kind of worship perhaps.”
“They worship a water well?” scoffed my brother. “They live on the coast, there’s water everywhere. Fucking heathens.”
The Wisp was still frowning, but he did not look on the abominations within. His eyes were focused on the dark coast and the angular building in the bay. “We’re too far from home,” he said. “I can hear the sea.” My brother and I turned from the hybrids and looked at him. “It sings a dirge, but I can’t hear the words … just the sorrow … and the madness.”
Arthur was about to insult him, when a sound from within the building caught our attention. Through the slivers of light we saw the stagnant water of the well begin to churn, even as the hybrids within gargled a shrill prayer to their dreaming god. From the well rose a large figure, displacing the water and replacing it with oozing slime. It was greyish-green with a sickly-white belly. Shiny scales crept up its back, rising to a red crest behind its swollen head. A long tongue flopped from a puckered mouth, and membranous webs linked each of its long fingers. I saw parts of a frog, parts of a fish, but nothing of man or anything I understood.
It wasn’t a hybrid, it was a Sunken Man, and I recoiled from it, and saw my brother do the same. It was at least ten feet tall and wider than two men. In one suckered hand it held a vicious-looking weapon, comprising a wooden shaft between two pincers. In the other was a chalice of black metal.
“Addie!” murmured Arthur.
I ignored him. The gangly creature was pulling itself from the well to tower over the hybrids, each of which was now screeching with euphoria. I couldn’t see a way of killing the creature. It was just too big. A solid thrust would barely pierce its mass, and even its head was pulpy, and protected by layers of slime and blubber.
“Addie,” repeated Arthur. “What do we do?”
The Sunken Man thrust out its rippling belly, sending slime and grease all over the floor. The screeching hybrids threw back their heads and the females exposed their bodies, beckoning the creature to take them. It strode amongst them, its webbed feet flopping as much as stepping across the wooden floor, inspecting the offered bodies. Without their robes, I saw that several were already heavily pregnant.
My mouth twitched, and I felt a surge of wyrd enter my hands. I tried to push it down as best I could, but anger was often the hardest thing to control. “I see a threat,” I snarled. “A threat too much for the three of us.”
“We should leave,” warned Jaxon for the second time.
“I believe you’re right,” I replied. “This is enough for Lord Ulric and my curiosity.”
A screech sounded from the nearest wooden jetty, and I turned to see a heavily deformed hybrid staring at us. It could have been there for some time, peering into the darkness to discern whether we were a shadow, whilst our attention was taken by the Sunken Man. Its screeching extended and rose in volume, echoing through the silent streets.
As I tried to focus, calm my anger, and assess our next move, Arthur stood and rushed past me, drawing his cutlass and bearing down on the hybrid. Sight of the abomination had affected him more than it had me, and I could feel his prodigious wyrd flowing through his tensed limbs. He had enough control not to growl or shout a challenge, but his footsteps were not light and he paid no attention to staying in the shadows.
“Too much noise,” said Jaxon. “We must stop him. We must leave. The sea rises.”
I stood, leaving the shadows at the base of the large building, and pursued my brother. The Wisp joined me, though he hung back and took a stealthier route. Arthur held his cutlass above his head, charging his wyrd for a powerful strike at the startled hybrid. The creature was female, with sagging, wrinkly breasts and a distended belly, poking through an open robe. She held a canvas sack, but no weapons, and gave me no indication that she was preparing to avoid my brother’s blade.
“Once more for the Severed Hand,” grunted Arthur, bringing his cutlass and his wyrd down on the hybrid’s skull. The blade bit into the creature’s flabby head, and a gout of sickly fluid oozed upwards. My brother was using too much power and would exhaust himself quickly, but with three more strikes he proved his point that an aware duellist was more dangerous than a surprised one. Layers of slime and flesh made the hybrid resilient, but Arthur hacked through its natural defences and split its grotesque head down the middle.
“Arthur, time to go,” I snapped, through gritted teeth.
He looked at me. He was panting and his eyes were red and moist. With a flick of his wrist, the creature’s ichor left his cutlass and flopped onto the twitching corpse at his feet.
Then the sea began to move. It had been still and black, barely more than a background to our visit. But now it rose and fell, as small waves broke against the wooden jetty. Gently at first, the water churned and boiled, throwing forth spray that made me close my eyes. Around the angular structure in the bay, I saw seaweed writhe and dance in the air, thrown upward by the waves and looking like black tentacles, framing the square building. Everything smelled of salt and fish, even the wooden jetty and the strangely cobbled street on which I stood. Suddenly, from the water, fins appeared, a few at a time, displacing the waves. Arthur turned in time to see a dozen Sunken Men rise slowly from the bay. Their fish-like crests were flushed to a bright red, and each huge creature held the same spear, topped with a vicious pincer. They wore belts and sashes, adorned with seashells and other flotsam, but were largely naked, flopping out of the water like bipedal fish. They were smaller than the previous one, though still two heads taller than any man.
From behind, I heard gargled shouting and running feet. I looked back and saw hybrids filling the street behind us. From the large building came the flabbiest and the most grotesque, wielding their hooked spears and staring at the three duellists who had invaded their fucked-up village and interrupted their worship. They spread out behind us, hissing to each other, and slowly cutting off any means of temporal escape.
We were trapped against the coast. Jaxon was to my left, crouched in the shadow of a rotten fishing boat. Arthur was vibrating with anger a few feet in front of me, his eyes focused on the Sunken Men. All three of us were in the open, but Arthur stood out, silhouetted against the sea. I didn’t know what to do. In that moment, I felt fear, and knew that my blade and my wyrd were not enough. No gods, spirits or men held dominion over me, but defeat was still defeat and death was still death. East or west would take us deeper into the village; north were a dozen Sunken Men, south were more hybrids than I could count. The only option was the void.
“Jaxon, Arthur, the glass! Now! Or we’ll be nothing but fish-food.”
“I’d rather die here than in the void,” snapped Jaxon, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “For death will come either way.”
Arthur heard me, but didn’t reply. He was too busy roaring curses at the Sunken Men who pulled their flabby bodies out of the wash towards him.
“Break the glass!” I repeated. “We survive this problem, before dealing with the next one.”
Jaxon’s jaw tightened, but he pushed back his head and his pupils turned white. I took a few large strides and clamped my hand onto Arthur’s shoulder, before reaching out with my wyrd and dragging us both to the void.
The Wisp was already beyond the glass, but my eyes were drawn elsewhere. The Bay of Bliss, the strange settlement, even the approaching monsters, all were eclipsed by a roiling mass of spirits. It was as if we stood in dense fog, with thousands of eyes looking at us through the mist. The globes of wyrd, surrounding our bodies, kept the spirits at bay, but only because they were startled. Within moments the mist closed in.
“Addie, these are chaos spirits,” said the Wisp. “The spawn of something greater.”
Arthur still held his cutlass and took a wide stance, but tears fell from his eyes, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening to him. As I opened my mouth to command we move away through the void, the mist began to take form. The eyes were now attached to reaching tendrils, and each tendril was attached to a bubbling mound of flesh and mouths. There were thousands of spirits, twisting and turning, like a tornado of skin and ichor, surrounding us and getting closer. I hesitated, as mouths reached for us, snapping with thin, gnashing teeth.
The Wisp found his voice before me. “Back through the glass. Now!” he shouted, his voice cracking with fear.
I reached for Arthur again, but my arm was snared by a fleshy tentacle. Puckered mouths covered its length, and it gripped my skin, biting in pin-points of pain across my forearm. I howled, trying to fling the spirit aside and reach my brother. He swung his cutlass in frenzied circles, hacking at anything that got within his range. The last thing on his mind was retreat. They could die, and he cut down several, making them blink out of existence as they were killed. But dozens of spiteful mouths pierced his body. His mind had recoiled at the sight of a foe he could not match with steel and wyrd, and I saw him enveloped by fleshy lips and razor-sharp teeth. He disappeared in agony, with an insane shriek on his lips, carried away on a endless tide of flesh.
“Arthur!” I roared, as Jaxon’s hand reached my shoulder and pulled us both back through the glass.
I fell to the muddy street, staring up at the cloudy sky with Jaxon sprawled next to me. Before I could sit up or scream in anguish at the loss of my brother, my neck was held by a pincer and my arms were restrained by slimy hands.
Will men remember the Icelords?
Will they know we came with the Always King and his Claws?
Will they know of our wisdom and our kindness?
Will they know not all Eastron came to the Pure Lands as invaders?
No, they will not. The Sea Wolves did their work well.
For now we are People of Ice, and Icelords no longer.
From “The Lament” by Valen Ice, First Fang 50–52da
Part Five
Duncan Greenfire on Nowhere
13
We’d arrived at Cold Point the previous evening, in a tight convoy of horses and carts. Every hour of travel we’d crept further under the Maelstrom, until the sky disappeared and only the churning black vortex remained. It was a vast cone, cut into the glass, deep enough that I couldn’t see its end. Strange tunnels of black cloud rippled downwards as typhoons, striking the earth a distance away and bridging the gap between the realm of form and the realm of void. I kept expecting to be sucked upwards by some void storm, and pulled into the depthless layers of infinity and wyrd that assaulted my eyes. The undulating rocky landscape was minuscule in comparison, as if the world had broken to show us just how insignificant we were. Even Cold Point, the Grim Wolf’s town, was barely an interesting feature on a tiny canvas. I didn’t even notice it at first. Not until the encircling wall became impossible to ignore.
The town of Ice was well distant from the centre of the Maelstrom, and built predominantly of huge granite blocks. Three rivers plunged towards it, each meeting a sluice gate and a high arched gateway. It looked nothing like the Severed Hand or Moon Rock, both of which were sprawling affairs, plonked within a high wall, designed to keep everything nasty outside. Cold Point had dozens of high walls, criss-crossing its streets and creating small forts at each intersection. Nothing was ramshackle or in need of repair. Simple doors were framed with iron struts and were flush to the granite walls when closed. Every street, every turning, every crossroads could be locked up and defended. It was a town built to make an attacker bleed. But those that lived here were forced forever to look at the Maelstrom.
I certainly struggled to turn away as Loco Death Spell led me through the largest of the three gates. The Brethren dismounted outside the walls, tying their beasts in low granite stables, tended to by Mirralite Pure Ones. The other captives – David Falcon’s Fang, Snake Charmer and William Vane – were held in individual carts, closely guarded by Inigo Night Walker’s duellists.
I had only Twist for company, and the pain spirit was evidently lost in thought. He’d experienced the same things as me, and had just as many questions. Neither of us could recall the vision with any clarity, but the Old Bitch of the Sea and her words were felt as strongly as the death of Lord Vikon. Greenfire must let his wyrd shine. Greenfire must honour us all. I still didn’t know how, but despite my own feelings of inadequacy, I knew that the Old Bitch of the Sea accepted me as a Sea Wolf. For now that was enough, though simpler considerations still plagued my mind. What was Inigo Night Walker doing on Nowhere? And why had the Brethren attacked the Dead Horse?
*
The man was Xymon Ice, called Blade Smile, and he wouldn’t stop staring at me. He was the Grim Wolf’s eldest son and looked at me like I was some kind of strange logic puzzle. That perhaps I needed decoding. He may have been right, but his staring was not making a good first impression. He shared the wild and twitchy eyes of his father, but was much smaller. He verged on the slender, with thin, muscled forearms and tight jaw bones. I’d been delivered to him by Loco, with no explanation as to why we needed to speak. Blade Smile held no sword to my throat, but he gracefully twirled a knife through his fingertips, as if he could bury it in my forehead with a flick of his wrist.
