. . or so I think.
It gets hard to think sometimes. It’s hard to remember what that night was like. I never asked her why she abandoned me. I never asked her why she was speaking with a greenshict, those killers of men.
She has her reasons. . right?
But are they good? If I asked her, maybe she’d tell me. Maybe we could still do this.
Sometimes, I think about it.
Then the voice starts screaming.
The Shen took the tome and fled to their island home of Jaga. We follow them there. The demons will, too, and the netherlings. I’ll kill them all.
This is what we were meant to do.
This is why we live.
We kill.
They die.
Our choice.
Our plan is to go to Jaga. Our plan is to find the tome, to keep it out of the hands of the Shen and everyone else. The island is far away. The way is treacherous. That doesn’t matter.
The traitors are coming with me.
I’m going to bury them there.
ONE
He awoke from the nightmares and said it.
“Hanth.”
He rose, slipped a dirty and threadbare robe over his body and wore nothing else. He stared at his hands, mortal soft and human frail.
“Hanth.”
He left a small hovel, one of many. He walked with a person, one of many, down to the harbor. Carried over their heads, passed along by his hands, he watched a corpse slide from their grasp, into the bay, and disappear under the depths. A short prayer. A short funeral.
One of many.
“Hanth.”
His name was Hanth.
He knew this after only three repetitions.
Three days ago, it took twenty times for him to remember that he was Hanth. Two days ago, it took eleven times to remember that he was not the Mouth. And today, after three repetitions, he remembered everything.
He remembered his father now, sailor and drunk. He remembered his mother, gone when he learned to walk. He remembered the promise he made to the child and wife he didn’t know, that Hanth would be there.
He met his wife and child. He kept his promise. Those memories were the ones that hurt, filled him with pain exquisite, like needles driven into flesh thought numb. Exciting. Excruciating.
And they never ended there. The needle slid deeper. He remembered the days when he lost them both. He remembered the day he begged deaf gods and their greedy servants to save his child. He remembered cursing them, cursing the name that could do nothing for them.
He threw away that name.
He heard Ulbecetonth speak to him in the darkness.
He became the Mouth.
“Hanth.”
That was his name now. The memories would not go. He didn’t want them to go. Mother Deep meant nothing.
So, too, did her commands. So, too, did the fealty he once swore to her.
He remembered that, too. The sound of a beating heart would not let him forget.
In the distance, so far away as to have come from another life, he could hear it. Its beat was singular and steady; a foot tapping impatiently. He turned and looked to the lonely temple at the edge of Port Yonder, the decrepit church standing upon a sandy cliff. The people left it there for the goddess they honored.
The people knew nothing. They did not know what the wars had left imprisoned in that temple.
And as long as he lived, they never would.
He had once agreed to make them know. He had agreed to bring Daga-Mer back. The Mouth had agreed to that.
He was Hanth.
Daga-Mer would wait forever.
He turned his back on the Father now, as he had turned his back on his former life, and turned his attentions to the harbor.
Another body. Another splash.
One of many since the longfaces attacked.
What they had come for, no one knew. Even though the Mouth had once been their enemy, Hanth knew nothing of their motives, why they had come to Yonder, why they had slaughtered countless people, why they burned the city, why they had attacked the temple and done nothing more than shattered a statue and left.
He knew only that they had done these things. The bodies, indiscriminately butchered, lay as evidence amongst half the city that was now reduced to ashen skeletons.
His concerns were no longer for them, but for the dead and for the people who carried them, bodies in one hand and sacrifices in the other as they moved in slow lines to the harbor.
One procession bowed their heads for a moment, then turned away and left. Another came to take their place at the edge of the docks. Another would follow them. By nightfall, the first procession would be back.
“Not going to join in?”
He turned, saw the girl with the bushy black hair and the broad grin against her dusky skin that had not diminished in the slightest, even if her hands were darkened with dried blood and she reeked of death and ashes.
“Kasla.”
He never had to repeat her name.
She glanced past his shoulder to the funerary processions. “Is it that you’re choosing to stand away from them or did they choose for you?” Upon his perplexed look, she sighed. “They don’t speak well of you, Hanth. After all you’ve done for us, after you helped distribute food and organize the arrangements, they still don’t trust you.”
He said nothing. He didn’t blame them. He didn’t care.
“Might be because of your skin,” she said, holding her arm out and comparing it to his. “No one’s going to believe you once lived here when you look like a pimple on someone’s tanned ass.”
“It’s not that,” he replied.
She sighed. “No, it’s not. You don’t pray with them, Hanth. They want to appreciate you. They want to see you as someone sent from Zamanthras, to guide them.”
He stared at her, unmoved.
“And that’s kind of hard to do when you spit on Her name,” Kasla sighed. “Couldn’t you just humor them?”
“I could,” he said.
“Then why don’t you?”
He regarded her with more coldness than he intended and spoke.
“Because they would hold their child’s lifeless body in their hands and beg for Zamanthras to bring her back,” he said, “and when no one would deign to step from heaven to do anything, they would know me a liar. People can hate me if they want. I will do what the Gods can’t and help them anyway.”
It was harder to turn away from her than it was to turn away from anything, from everything else. It was harder to hear the pain in her voice than it was to hear the heartbeat of a demon.
“Then how,” she asked softly, “will you ever call this city home?”
He closed his eyes, sighed. She was angry. She was disappointed in him. He used to know how to handle this.
He looked, instead, to the distant warehouse, the largest building seated not far away from the temple. It, too, was a prison, though of a more common nature. It held a captive of flesh and blood behind a heavy door. Its prisoner’s heart beat with a sound that could not reach Hanth’s ears.
“Rashodd,” he said the name. “He did not try to escape?”
“He didn’t, no. Algi watches his cell now.” He could sense the question before she asked it. “How did you know his name?”
“He’s a Cragsman,” Hanth replied, evading it less than skillfully. “A shallow intellect and all the savagery and cunning of a bear. If we’ve two more men to spare, then put them both on watch with Algi.”
“That’s difficult,” she said. “Everyone not busy with the dead are busy with the dying. We’ve still got the sick to think about.”
Hanth had been avoiding the problem and the ill alike, never once coming close to the run-down building that had been used to house them. He could handle the dead. He could quell unrest. He could not handle illness.