The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Who was the monster?

“Very well,” she said, although she couldn’t bear thinking of closing her eyes again. If she closed her eyes, she might see the blackened bodies of comrade and enemy alike. But what else could she do? She was at the mercy of these creatures who spoke like Gnat and Mosquito and who had not yet devoured her. Who knew how long they would claim to be—or seem to be—the brothers. She would drown if she tried to escape back the way she had come. She might not have the strength to walk, and there might be no way to escape to the surface from this cavern in any case.

o;Maybe so, Brother,” retorted Mosquito, “but we don’t know if they were waiting for us or if they were waiting for anyone!”

“How many sorcerers can weave such a spell, you idiot? Who do you think they expected?”

“Where is Sorgatani?” she asked, managing to get up on her elbows.

The ground she lay on scraped her skin, and it hurt to move at all, but no pain could equal the shock of looking up with her salamander eyes and remembering that Gnat and Mosquito were dead; they had been fed to the fishes. Where their bodies had gone she did not know, but the creatures who stared back at her were not the Jinna brothers at all but mermen, the same beasts she had seen devouring her hapless servants in the stormy waters.

They had the torsos of men but the hindquarters of fish, ending in a massively strong tail. They had arms both lean and powerful, and their scaly hands had webbing between the digits and claws at the tips. Monstrous faces stared at her, with flat eyes, slits for noses, lipless mouths, and hair that moved of its own accord, as if a nest of eels was fastened to their skulls. Yet they spoke Jinna with the inflections of Gnat and Mosquito.

“The Hidden One?” Mosquito shook his head, and looked at his brother, although it was too dark in this pit for any normal man to see, and they were not men to have lips or wrinkles from which to read thoughts and emotions.

Gnat shook his head like an echo. The eels that were his hair woke and hissed, then settled. “We don’t know. Her wagon went through the gap. Then we came back for you.”

“What of Breschius?” she asked, choking on the words.

“Those who were still living ran out through the stockade. We came back to help you.”

“You are dead!”

Again they spoke to each other by looking alone. Water made a sucking sound in a hole nearby, rising and falling. Lichens growing along the walls of this cavern gave off a slight luminescence, and this dim light allowed her to see that the two mermen rested half in and half out of water where it funneled away into a tunnel sunk into the rock, an old flooded passageway. She lay farther up, almost in the center of a cavern no larger than a royal bedchamber. It looked high enough to stand in, and she thought there were three passageways opening into the rock on the far side of the chamber, if she could only get so far. Yet to move seemed an impossible task. Her head felt muzzy and her ears clogged. Her leg hurt so badly that she could barely think.

“Many are dead,” agreed Gnat somberly. “Many more will die. We died for you, Bright One.”

“How can it be you speak to me now?” Her words echoed through the cavern. The ground shivered in response.

“The Earth is waking,” said Mosquito. “The Old Ones speak. We are your servants. What do you wish us to do?”

Ai, God. She wept. She had not feared to risk her own life, but she hadn’t really considered what it meant to allow others to die on her behalf. Gnat and Mosquito were dead, pierced by arrows and then eaten alive, yet some portion of them remained living within the bodies of these creatures.

Was she their prisoner, or their master?

“Where are we?” she said when she could talk through her tears. Her voice shook, or perhaps it was the ground trembling again, the shudder of a chained beast. Fear washed through her, its taste as harsh as sea water. As the quake subsided, a second followed hard on it. Did the shaking never stop?

“Beneath,” said Gnat.

“We are at the heart,” said Mosquito. “Lay your head against the earth, Bright One. Close your eyes. Let the Old Ones speak to you.”

Liath sat up. Pain shot through her injured thigh, but she gritted her teeth and endured it. “Who are the Old Ones?”

They shook their heads and, after another wordless consultation, Mosquito spoke. “We don’t know. They live in the Slow, just as you do, but they live even beyond the Slow for the passage of their life is not like that of flesh, which feeds us.”

Flesh fed them, mind and body. If they consumed her, would they ingest her knowledge and her memory and her way of speaking? Even if they did, how were they, who fed as all creatures must feed, any worse than she was? She had killed men this day in the most horrific fashion imaginable.

Who was the monster?

“Very well,” she said, although she couldn’t bear thinking of closing her eyes again. If she closed her eyes, she might see the blackened bodies of comrade and enemy alike. But what else could she do? She was at the mercy of these creatures who spoke like Gnat and Mosquito and who had not yet devoured her. Who knew how long they would claim to be—or seem to be—the brothers. She would drown if she tried to escape back the way she had come. She might not have the strength to walk, and there might be no way to escape to the surface from this cavern in any case.

“We know of a plant that will soothe the wound. Rest. Listen to the Old Ones. We will bring nourishment, and brackweed for healing.”

“So be it,” she said.

Mosquito rolled sideways, got most of the way into the water, then vanished, with a heave of his tail. Water boiled up to her toes before subsiding across the uneven floor. He was gone. Gnat remained, silent and watchful.

She stretched full length against the earth and laid a cheek against the ground. The surface abraded her skin. For a long time she remained there with eyes open, just breathing, emptying her mind, trying not to remember the battle. Or Sanglant. Or Blessing. Or Hanna. Or Da. Or the fire daimones.