“Kasla?”
“Yes,” she whispered back. “Yes, I’m sure. Yes, I’m really sure. Remember the promise I made you when your father left?”
What was she talking about?
“I promised you I’d never let anything hurt you like that again. I haven’t, have I?”
He rounded the corner and saw the sea lapping at the streets. The wall here had decayed and crumbled away, the alley ending where the ocean began. He saw the woman who was not Kasla, kneeling with her hands extended, her face painted with blood, her tears shining.
Lightning flashed soundlessly overhead.
And he saw the creature looming over her.
It rose on a pillar of coiled gray flesh, a macabre flower that blossomed into an emaciated torso, withered breasts dangling from visible ribs. A spindly neck gave way to a bloated head and black, void-like eyes. A fleshy stalk dangled from its brow, the tip of it pulsating with a blue light that would have been pleasant had it not illuminated so clearly the woman.
“Thisisthewaytherightwaytheonlyway. .”
The whispers rose from a pair of womanly lips, twitching delicately within a pair of skeletal, fishlike jaws. They were meant for the woman. It was Hanth’s curse that he could hear them, too.
“Somuchsufferingsomuchpainandwhocomestohelpyouwhowhowho. .”
“So much pain,” the woman sobbed. “Why would Zamanthras let him be born into such a world?”
“Noonewilltellyounooneanswersnogodslistennoonecaresnooneevercares. .”
“I hear a voice. I hear Her.”
“No,” Hanth whispered, taking a tentative step forward.
“MotherDeepknowsyourpainfeelsyourpainknowsyourpromise. .”
“I promised. .” the woman said to the darkness.
“Keephimsafeneverlethimfeelpaineverythingissafedownbelowendlessblueaworldofendlessblueforyouandyourchild. .”
“Child,” he said.
He caught sight of the boy, crawling out from under his hiding place. He ran to his mother’s blood-covered arms.
“That’s right,” she said through the tears. “Come to me, darling. We’ll end this all together.” She collected him up in her arms, stroked his sticky hair and laid a kiss upon his forehead. “Father’s down there. You’ll see.”
She turned toward the ocean.
“Everything we’ve ever wanted. . is down below.”
“NO!”
He screamed. It was lost in the storm.
So, too, was the sound of two bodies, large and small, striking the water and slipping beneath the waves, leaving nothing more than ripples.
The creature turned to him. The blue light illuminated the frown of one of its mouths, the perverse joy of the other.
“Couldhavesavedthemcouldhavestoppedthiscouldhavegonemucheasier. .” It whispered to him and only to him. “Yourfaultyourfaultyourfault. .”
The beast lowered itself to the ground, hauled itself to the edge of the water on two thin limbs.
“BetrayedHerabandonedHerforsookHerafterallShepromised. .”
It looked at him. He saw his horror reflected in its obsidian eyes. It spoke, without whispers. And he heard its true voice, thick and choking.
“But She will not abandon you, Mouth.”
He saw the creature disappearing only in glimpses: a gray tail slipped beneath the water, azure light winked out in the gloom.
And he was left with but ripples.
His back buckled, struck with the sudden despair that only now had caught up with him. Realization upon horrifying realization was heaped upon him and he fell to his knees.
Hanth would die here.
Daga-Mer had risen. The faithful ran rampant throughout Yonder, a tide of flesh and song that would drown the world. Ulbecetonth would speak to that world and find ears ready to listen, ready to believe that everything they wanted lay beneath the sea. His family was dead.
Kasla was gone.
He remembered despair clearly.
“No. .”
Denial, too.
He clambered to his feet. Hanth would die soon, but not yet.
Where? Where could she have gone? She had said something, hadn’t she? Before he left, she had said. . what was it? Something about them, not leaving them. Who were they?
The sick. The wounded. She would have tried to find them. Because she was the person he would run through hell to find.
He slipped through the alleys, found himself back on the streets. The tides of panic had relented, the people vanished. Those who hadn’t been hauled away lay trampled in the streets.
He could not help them now. He walked slowly, wary of any of frogmen that might lurk in the shadows. It only took a few steps to realize the folly of that particular plan. If any frogmen came for him, they would be aware of him long before he was of them.
The Omens, lining the rooftops in rows of unblinking eyes, would see to that.
“Denial is a sin,” they chanted, their voices echoing each other down the line. “The faithful deny nothing. The penitent denies heaven. The heathen denies everything.”
Empty words to those who knew the Omens. Risen from the congealed hatred that followed demons and the faithful alike, they were merely parasites feeding and regurgitating the angst and woe their demonic hosts sowed in quantity. Without anything resembling a genuine thought, they could say nothing he could care to hear.
“She’s going to die, Mouth.”
Or so he thought.
He looked, wide-eyed, up at the dozens of chattering mouths, all chanting a different thing at him.
“She’s going to die.”
“You’re going to watch it.”
“She’s going to suffer, Mouth.”
“Sacrifices must be made.”
“Promises must be kept.”
“You could have stopped this.”
And he was running again, as much to escape as to find Kasla. Their voices welled like tides behind him.
“Why do you deny Mother Deep?”
“You could have saved her.”
“This is how it must be, Mouth.”
“Mother Deep won’t deny you.”
“She’s going to cry out, Mouth.”
“All because of you.”
Ignore them, he told himself. They’re nothing. You find her. You find her and everything will be fine. You’re going to die. They’re going to kill you for what you’ve done. But she’ll live and everything will be fine.
It was the kind of logic that could only make sense to the kind of man who ran through hell.
He carried that logic with him as he would a holy symbol as he found the decrepit building. He carried that logic with him through the door and into it.
Before they had taken to housing the wounded here, it had been a warehouse: decaying, decrepit, stagnant. When it was filled with the sick and the dying, it had been no cheerier. The air had hung thick with ragged breaths, gasps brimming with poison, groans of agony.
But it was only when Hanth found the room still and soundless that he despaired.
In long lines, the sick lay upon cots against the wall, motionless in the dark. No more moaning. No more pain. Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating faces that had been twisted earlier that morning. A sheen, glistening like gossamer, lay over faces that were now tranquil with a peace they would have never known before.
His eyelid twitched. He caught the stirring of shadows.
“Hanth?”
And he saw Kasla. Standing between the rows of beds, she stared into a darkness that grew into an abyss at the end of the room, like blood congealing in the dead. He laid a hand upon her and felt the tremble of her body.
“We have to go,” he said firmly.
“The city. .”
“It’s not ours anymore.” He tugged on her shoulder. “Kasla, come.”
“I can’t, Hanth.” Her voice was choked. “It won’t let me.”