“Triq? What the hell
is
that thing?” Ecko’s awe had a note of real fright. “You gotta tell me what it is. Jesus Harry Christ, what is this, Clash of the fucking Titanics?”
Triqueta had never heard Ecko sound scared.
The slithering came forwards, slowly.
Something was coming.
In the deep grey layers of light, it was only an outline, feminine but wrong somehow. Below a tangled mass of dark hair, its shoulders were low to the ground, and after a moment, she realised that this was because it was dragging its lower body behind it. Its arms pulled it torturously across the floor.
Fear screamed at her to run,
run
!
But she couldn’t move.
“Triq?” Ecko’s voice was almost quavering. “What is it?”
“What’s
what
?”
“Oh Jesus Hairy Christ on a fucking motor scooter.” Ecko took a deep breath, let it out. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Ecko? Get what...?”
“What I fuckin’ do best,” Ecko muttered. “Jus’ remember, whatever happens now? It’s not my fault.” He took another breath and stepped in front of the beast, shadow within shadow. A tiny flame flickered for a moment, then there was a fizz and the flame became a little brighter. “Fire in the
hole!”
Ecko said, and the tiny flame arced up the room.
Knowing Ecko’s foibles all to well, Triq crouched and put her hands over ears.
The resulting explosion created a whoosh of hot air that made tables rock, brought shelves off the wall, and shattered pots all over the room. Even with her eyes closed, Triqueta could see the erupting flower of light. She heard Ecko whoop beside her and then cackle, his fear forgotten; heard the furious, feminine scream that came from the creature. The smells of mwenar and herb were lost under the rich scent of burning meat.
But the thing was still coming.
* * *
It took a few moments for it to sink in that no one was coming to answer Amethea’s call. It was a few moments too long, moments wasted, and the echoes of the harsh cry scorned like laughter.
Like it was already too late.
The man was even closer, now, stumbling down the near side of the pile. He didn’t scramble sideways, or put out his hands like a normal man would, he staggered eyeless like the blind things in the rug, like he was already -
Oh that’s it. Enough.
With a rise of irritation at her own desire to be a victim, Amethea took note of the weapons she had. The man paused, his head up and his breath still steaming as if his very insides were cooking in the cold. He seemed to realise that she was up to something.
Help me.
The strange half-words sounded again, mingling oddly with the dawn sounds of the city and the last echoes of Amethea’s cry.
Help me.
But this time, she’d really had enough. Her little belt-blade was more tool than weapon; throwing rocks would only slow him down. As he began to move again, his foot rocked one of the timbers, sticking half-out of the pile.
She couldn’t lift it... but maybe...
As he came close enough for her to smell the rotting-mulch stink of his breath, to see the lichens that had eaten his eyes, she planted one booted foot against the long wooden beam.
And the monsters in her head paused to watch, curious.
* * *
Still a fair distance from them, the creature hauled itself from the flames. It was alight, its hair and skin burning, but that was not what bothered her.
It was female, a grotesque and bloated parody of former beauty. Once, her blue-black hair would have been lustrous and long - the envy of her generation, now it was tangled and matted and afire. Her upper body was naked, revealing two sets of rotting breasts and four fat, white arms. Moss grew on her skin; parts of her flesh were missing altogether, eaten by the plant life that she housed. Her overhanging belly was sunless-white, and where the triangle of hair should have been, there were scales, peeling and dry. She had no legs. In their place was the body of the mwenar, stumpy forelimbs struggling to support the weight. It was as sick and bloated as the human half, and it was this that she dragged behind her, a slick trail of moisture following.
Two of her human arms were helping this rotten weight move. The other two were reaching forwards, even as the fire melted her flesh.
Now, she rose upright like a rearing snake, both sets of sizzling-fat arms spreading to meet her attackers. Her hair and skin were still burning, the flesh on her face was beginning to melt like tallow, but she seemed to feel no pain.
Fear began to grow in Triq’s heart. Fear - and nausea.
Beside her, Ecko paused, the female thing in front of him burning, naked flesh dissolving in heat and fire.
* * *
With a second cry, a cry of defiance and denial and fury and outright rebellion - at the man, at the monsters, at her own Gods-damned fear. Amethea slammed the beam with her foot.
It rocked, but didn’t move.
She kicked it again. And again. She kicked it harder, and harder; she kicked it even as the man was walking along its length, and reaching for her, his hands too blotched with green. She spat through gritted teeth and nearly cried.
Move, damn you. Move.
Move!
Then it rocked. It jerked and slid. It moved. The end tipped from its perch and the beam fell sideways, twisting as it went.
It threw the man - the monster, whatever he was - sideways into the rubble... and a whole slide of stone came down on top of him.
Filthy, dusty, crying and exhilarated and relieved, she screamed defiance at the pile.
It didn’t move again.
* * *
In the work room, the bands of fear that bound Ecko and Triqueta were released; they were able to move.
Ecko threw himself at the burning creature, his peculiar hand-and-foot fighting too fast to follow. At the same time, Triqueta sprang past the creature and landed behind her, blades slashing at her back and tail.
The creature screamed in fury. She twisted faster than Triq realised, her tallow arms reaching and agile and fearfully strong.
Ecko was moving, but he was not fast enough, not this time. One burning hand caught Triq by the throat, searing her skin and tearing her breath from her body; the other slapped her, setting off an inferno in her skull.
She felt the impact, the rush of air, the strike of the wall... then nothing.
By the time Amethea reached Ecko, screaming at him to stop, to
stop
, it was too late.
Triq was slumped in a heap at the base of one of the pillars, and the black-haired woman, the same woman whose image was on the hanging in the hall, had been torn to fragments and ash.
Whatever clue they were supposed to find here, it had been burned away.
Stuck in the hospice like an invalid, Triqueta was restless.
A day - only one! - and she already itched with impatience. She had too much to think about, too much to do. The world moved on around the walls of the hospice, and she wanted to be a part of it.
If she raised her fingers to her face, she could feel the dressing under her opal stone. The burn was slick and patchy, the skin tight and hurting. The dressing covered her face right down to her jawline.
It was taking all her concentration to not scratch the shit out of it.
Burn or no, however, the serene air of the hospice was driving her loco. She wanted to see how Ress was, talk to Jayr, to Amethea; she wanted to go to the Library, she wanted to rail at Nivrotar for sending them to that damned crafthouse in the first place. She wanted to know what the rhez Ecko had been doing there. She wanted to go back to Roviarath, for Gods’ sakes, do something to help...!
Amethea counselled her, advised patience. For now, Triq had to sit tight and not talk too much. Triqueta had the robust physical health of most Banned, but her age scared her and she was not mending as fast as she used to. Thea was good, though, she’d managed to save the opal stone - thereby rescuing her friend from a lifetime of misfortune.
“How are those things even in there?” Amethea had asked her. “They’re right in the bone.”
“Had them since I was a babe,” Triq had told her, carefully trying to talk out of one side of her mouth. “Gift of the desert, mark of your sire’s family, his ‘Banner’, embedded at birth. And no, I don’t know why they still fit.”
Amethea had chuckled. “That’s not possible. Stone can’t -” The statement had come out as bitter, bitten off short. They both knew full well that stone and flesh could do all sorts of things they weren’t supposed to. “Sorry. Still understanding, I suppose.”
But Triq had snorted. “Nothing makes sense. Should’ve interrogated the mwenar.”
The unspoken thought had hung loud:
If Ecko hadn’t torn it to pieces.
But Amethea had said, “We’re all crazed, we’d have to be to be mixed up in all of this.” Then she’d turned her attention back to the burn. “You’re lucky, this could’ve been so much worse. Don’t mess with it, and you’ll heal pretty clean. When you feel ready, go down to the bathing room and have a look -but come back up here and let me re-cover it.”
Have a look...
The phrase had been so simple.
But Triqueta had not looked at her own reflection. Not since...
...and
that
thought didn’t need finishing.
Now, though, she was dirty and itchy and achy and restless, so she found her courage and an armful of cloths, and padded softly down the curve of stone stairs, down to the bathing pool, silent and shining under the stone of the city’s ancient hospice.
The burn was a timely reminder - if she was going to face whatever was coming, she better have the cursed nerve to face herself.
Even if descending the stairs did feel like she was walking to her own execution.
For a moment, as she came to their foot and saw the water ahead of her, the dance of its reflection on the vaulted stone of the ceiling, the memory of Tarvi’s kiss coiled around her fear, laughing with a pretty girl’s sweetness and guile. Gods know, it thrilled her blood still; Triqueta had known enough lovers in her life, but a kiss like that...
She still didn’t know how many returns the bitch had really taken.
Holding the cloths like armour, Triqueta stopped short of the edge of the pool.
A look...
One more step.
She was going to be sick.
Swallowing hard, Triq glanced around her, assuring herself that the chamber was empty, that no one else had to see this. The circle of stone benches was cold and silent; between them, the incomprehensible dance of statues had their blind faces turned away. In the centre of the pool itself, a flat stone platform served some forgotten purpose.
She was alone. The air was cold.
Okay.
Slowly, she took off her belt, her old Banned leathers. She could see her own chillflesh, prickling over her body as if in dread.
I can put an arrow in the eye of a running esphen. I can hang from one foot in the stirrup of a racing horse. I can out-fight and out-drink a warrior twice my size - and take him to my tent afterwards.
She answered her own thought with a tang of bitterness.
But for how much longer?
The water was calm, absolutely still. She could see the old mosaics in the walls of the pool. One more step.
And there she was, looking back up at herself.
The woman in the water was not the Triqueta she knew -she had more curve, her skin was less tight, her belly softer, her thighs dimpled with shadow. The dressing on her cheek was crisp and clean - smaller than she’d thought. She raised her hands to her small breasts, lifted them to where they should be.
Let them go.
How old?
she asked her reflection.
How old am I?
The statues about her stayed silent.
“Okay,” she said aloud, needing to hear the words. “It could be worse. You look damned good for your age, sunshine. Whatever it is.”
The last phrase twisted in the roof, echoed back at her.
One kiss. One second where her basic desert instincts -
Laugh! Live! Love!
- had got the better of her -
Oh, who the rhez was she kidding? Her desert instincts had got the damned better of her all her life - too many lovers, too many gamblers, too many fights. With a wry grin at her unfamiliar reflection, she turned sideways, trying to see her arse, then stepped forward to dip a bare foot into the water.
It was cursed cold. She bit back a yelp and grinned.
Then she waded into the chill, careful to keep her face clear. She merged with that other self and the ripples shone as they spread across the stillness.
* * *
“Triq!” The voice was as warm and familiar as the touch of a terhnwood blade - and cut her skin just as readily. “Thea said you were bathing. Looks like my timing’s perfect.”
She turned, heart hammering, face burning, wet hair sticking to her shoulders...
Redlock.
Redlock of Idrak, once Faral ton Gattana, manor lord and hub-controller of his local farmlands and tithes, now freeman and warrior without peer, was grinning like a bweao, just as dangerous and as boyish as she remembered. His broken nose gave him a rugged air, hard and scruffy like a tavern brawler; his greying red hair was roughly braided. His garments were still road-stained and there was mud on his cheek. She kicked out and struck for the shore. Inexplicably, her heart was thundering like running hooves.
At the memory of her own reflection or as though she hadn’t really expected him to come back.
He called to her, “Stay there, silly girl!”
Then he dropped his axe-belt, unlaced his boots, kicked his way out of his battered garments. He was fit as a horse, grey scattered through the hair on his chest. His freckled skin was sunburned only to his throat and elbows, and littered with a storyboard of scars.
One side of his ribcage was badly dented where Maugrim’s chain had thrashed him, the scar was still vividly angry.