“So, that’s that, then. This was always how it was going to be.”
“No.”
Asper turned.
Xhai lamented, absently, that she only saw the overscum’s stare shatter for a moment before the rest of the face followed under a purple fist. But that was an instant, when confidence and coldness broke and left only weakness to be struck to the dirt, that was enough to make her smile.
“This was going to be easy,” Xhai said, rubbing the knuckles of her ruined hand. The bones creaked under the marred purple skin; maimed, but still offering cheerful, angry little pops. “This was going to mean nothing.”
Wide eyes betrayed fear. Not enough to stop Asper’s feet, however, as she scrambled to them and ran for the door. Xhai didn’t bother to chase. There was no need.
Not when there was a perfectly good, if slightly stained, chair right behind her.
Her hand slid smoothly to it. As smoothly as it sailed through the air. It exploded against the overscum’s back, sent her sprawling to the earth in a shower of splinters. She rolled, groaning, still clawing for the door; not dead.
Good. She didn’t deserve it. Not this fast. Not this way.
Not when others would want her alive.
Xhai strode over to her, placed a foot between her shoulder blades and took a fistful of her hair. The overscum’s shriek wasn’t enough to drown out the sound of her neck creaking as she drew it back. Her neck was close to snapping, close enough to let Xhai look down upon her bloodied nose, her shattered stare, the weakness leaking out of her face.
Close.
“But this. . this has meaning now,” Xhai said. “This is something that’s going to hurt. This is. .” She narrowed her eyes, gave a stiff jerk to the overscum’s hair. The ensuing shriek didn’t give her any pleasure. “He would know.”
The netherling’s arm snapped, brought the woman’s face against the earth. The dirt ate the scream, ate her struggle, ate everything but the overscum’s breath. She lay in her grave barely dug, unmoving. But alive.
“There’s a reason for this, too,” Xhai muttered. She seized the overscum by her belt, hoisted her effortlessly up and over her shoulder. “And that’s because Master Sheraptus wants you alive.”
She pushed the leather flap aside, striding into the sunlight. Those Green Things saw her, screamed, scattered; weak things that didn’t matter. Her eyes were for the distant shore, the blue seas and the dark shapes at the very edge of the horizon.
Black ships bearing kindred crew: those who had felt the same spark at the back of their head, who had heard the same call from their Master. They came for her. They came at his command.
As netherlings did, as she did, without ever asking why.
“Theory,” he said softly.
Dreadaeleon held up his hands to the light, inspected them. He squinted, trying to see the blood rushing through his fingers.
An erratic, convoluted mess, the human body was. The Venarium might call it a well-made machine to make themselves sound enlightened, but no one would look at the maps of veins and slabs of sinew and call it coherent. They might say that magic came from the same machine, followed the same laws, but no one knew exactly how it worked.
If they did, Dreadaeleon wouldn’t be dying as he spoke. “We acknowledge that Venarie follows rules, regulations,” he continued to the empty air of the village. “We acknowledge that it demands an exchange: power for power. That latter power must come from the human body, and we acknowledge that it does not come cheaply, hence the laws that govern its use.
“And acknowledging that the body and the Venarie it channels are one, we must also acknowledge that the body governs Venarie as much as Venarie governs body.” He smacked his lips, his tongue felt dry. “And in our hubris, we so often forget that there is much of the body that we do not know. Dozens of processes flow through us, the same that govern emotional flux, can affect the channeling of Venarie.
“Is it not true that a wizard using magic in fury is misguided and reckless? Is it not true that sorrow and despair can inhibit the flow of magic? Is that not why we value discipline and control? Perhaps it is these things, these. . these emotions that-” he blinked, his eyes stung with bitter moisture, “-excuse me, these emotional numbnesses that can cause the Decay, a stagnation of magical flow and maybe it’s that. . that same emotion that can cure or. . or. .”
His eyes were swimming in their sockets. His breath was wet and viscous, seeping out in tiny sobs from behind the thick lump that had lodged itself in his throat.
“I just. . I don’t want to die,” he said softly. “I don’t. I’ve got a lot of things to do here and. . there’s this girl and other stuff. And I just can’t die. And I can’t go back to the Venarium, either, and wait to die there. Just. . just let me try something. Let me figure this out and. . and. .”
He drew in a sharp breath. He shut his eyes tight. He bowed stiffly at the waist.
“Thank you, in advance, for your consideration of this theory.”
He opened his eyes. A bulbous yellow eye the size of a grapefruit looked back at him. After a moment, the Owauku’s other eye rotated in its socket to give him the attention of both. Perhaps he had stopped paying attention after the first sentence and kept one eye politely on the boy while the other swiveled away to find something more interesting.
Hard to blame him, isn’t it? he asked himself. Look at him. A walking beer keg with two giant eyeballs. His day is probably bursting with excitement. This was a stupid and humiliating exercise to begin with. To continue would only be-
“So,” he interrupted himself, “what’d you think?”
“Huh?” the Owauku asked.
Yes, exactly.
“Admittedly, the ending could use some polish,” he continued, forcing a smile onto his face, “what with the. . the crying and begging and all. But ultimately, the theory is sound and the conclusion is solid. Bralston can’t reject it without serious thought.”
The Owauku’s head bobbed heavily, not quite large enough to suit its massive eyes comfortably, nor quite small enough to convey the subtle difference between politeness and comprehension.
“So,” Dreadaeleon said, “what, you think maybe present the hypothesis more quickly?”
“Mah-ne,” the Owauku replied crisply, “sa-a ma? Sa-ma ah-maw-neh yo. Sakle-ah, denuht kapu-ah-ah, sim ma-ah taio mah lakaat. Nah-se-sim. Ka-ah, mah-ne.”
Dreadaeleon nodded carefully, made a soft, humming sound.
“So,” he said, looking up and sweeping his gaze about the village and the various green-skinned things milling about, “which one of you speaks human again? We can do this over.”
“NAH-AH! AH-TE MAH-NE-WAH!”
He turned around, saw the other Owauku rampaging forward, if legs that closely resembled pulled sausages could rampage. As it was, he came closer to rolling downhill than rushing forward. Whatever urgency was not present in his stride, however, was more than made up for in his voice.
“Ah-te mah-ne-wah siya!” he cried out. “SAKLEAH-AH-NAH!”
After the Owauku serving as Dreadaeleon’s audience caught the rushing one’s arm, all forms of comprehension that the boy might have pretended he had quickly vanished. The two began exchanging words, gestures, rolls of their bulging eyes with tremendous frequency. And yet, as alien as the rest was, one word, repeated often and with great fear, he picked up.
“Longface.”
Between the direction the rest of the Owauku came fleeing from and the rather distinct sound of someone’s tender something being stomped on, the rest was relatively easy for Dreadaeleon to figure out.