The Deathless Read online

  ‘No,’ she gasped.

  ‘There’s blood everywhere!’ He grabbed the hand that was holding the knife. ‘Do you want to get us killed?’

  A little indignation stirred within her. ‘I am not trying to kill anyone, quite the opposite.’

  ‘Shit and suns and fuck! They’re going to smell us a mile away.’ He picked up a piece of cloth, looked at her arm and then handed it to her with a look of disgust. ‘Clean yourself up.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to help me?’

  ‘I’ve been too close to you as it is,’ he muttered, releasing her arm and backing away. ‘You’re going to bring half the fucking Wild on our heads!’

  Chandni replaced the bandage but it took her several tries to retie the straps. Though she couldn’t feel her right hand, she found she could flex the fingers. It was strange, as if the digits belonged to someone else. She forced herself to hope. Surely it was a good sign that her fingers still responded to her commands? If the poison had worked, wouldn’t the hand be useless?

  Satyendra made an unhappy noise, one that would be followed by a proper cry if she did not feed him.

  ‘Ssh,’ she said as she opened the cook’s cloak and pulled down one side of her dress. ‘I’m coming. Ssh.’

  When she picked him up, Satyendra’s mouth was flapping, fishlike, so eager that he missed, head-butting her shoulder before latching on.

  She stroked his head as he grunted, content.

  The wagon was moving again, faster this time, with Varg’s deep voice a constant companion to the creaking wheels. She found both the tone and the content objectionable.

  Being careful not to disturb her son’s feeding, Chandni edged to the front of the wagon. No suns were visible now but a little gold still inflamed the sky. Long grasses swept to either side of the road. Not the short, leafy clumps she was used to at the castle but thick stalks over half her height, each one covered in buds the size of her thumbnail, each bud shaped like a human ear.

  As Varg muttered, the grasses rippled, the nearest stalks bent by the sound, touching their neighbour, whispering and passing it on. Like a breeze, Varg’s voice was carried away across the fields.

  Chandni’s eyes followed the trail until they came to rest on a distant shape, an anomaly in the gloom; she couldn’t tell if it were a person or animal, but whatever it was towered above the grass.

  She cleared her throat and pointed. ‘What is that?’

  The grasses caught her words, scattering them across the fields in a flurry of frightened echoes. ‘What is that, what is that, what is that …’

  As the ripples reached the shape in the distance it began to move, unfolding long appendages. Fabric hung down from them like a pair of wings, tattered. And then it began to glide, and Chandni could not be sure if the grasses simply parted for it or if they were passing it along, one row to the other.

  ‘That,’ said Varg, ‘is a Whispercage.’

  Glider started to whine and Varg responded by shouting and applying a boot to the Dogkin’s backside. ‘Go faster you stupid lump or you’ll really have something to complain about!’

  ‘Faster, faster, faster,’ said the grasses, ‘you’ll really have something, you’ll really have something, you’ll really have something.’

  She had thought it big before, but as the Whispercage got closer Chandni realized she had not done the creature justice. It was nearly three times her height and twice as wide, with a long stretched skeleton, wrapped in rippling cloth.

  Or is that loose skin? Chandni’s gorge began to rise. Is it wearing someone else’s skin?

  ‘It’s going to overtake us!’ she cried.

  ‘Take us,’ echoed the grasses, ‘take us, take us.’

  ‘We’re nearly past the fields,’ shouted Varg, ‘it won’t touch us unless we look at it or talk to it, understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ she replied, as the grasses whispered: ‘Touch us, touch us, touch us.’

  ‘That means keep your fucking eyes down and your mouth shut.’

  Chandni bit back a retort and did as she was told.

  With Glider’s five legs pumping for all they were worth, the wagon seemed to fly along the path, but the Whispercage was waiting for them up ahead. It leant out from the edge of the grasses, its arms – long poles of dirty bone – held high.

  As they went past, the wagon rocked sideways as the Whispercage latched onto it, and Chandni felt something brush her cheek. It was surprisingly gentle, and soft as peach skin.

  Don’t look up, she told herself.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see the edge of the fields in sight, the grasses thinning out and giving way to a wall of twisted trees.

  She forced herself not to react to the movement by her ear. The Whispercage was right next to her. In her periphery, she was aware of it watching, waiting for her to turn and make eye contact. It wore a hood of sorts, and within it something moved where she’d expect to find a mouth, a tongue-petalled flower, opening.

  Don’t look up.

  Satyendra’s urgent suckling had settled into a steady guzzle, now it stopped completely. She heard his happy sigh, then felt his head turn away. Too late, she tried to turn it back.

  Everything went dark as the Whispercage lunged, covering her. She flailed against it and it struck back, and all became a flurry of movement, as if she sat within a flight of furious birds.

  For a terrible moment she was convinced that Satyendra had been taken, his weight had gone from her arms and she screamed in despair, but when the Whispercage was ripped away, like a sail torn from a storm-tossed ship, her baby was still there, staring up at her. The blanket that he had been wrapped in was gone, but he appeared unharmed. And yet, despite the evidence of her eyes, she could not escape the feeling that she’d lost her baby.

  Varg looked across and nodded. ‘Thank fuck for that.’ But he didn’t slow down and Glider seemed all too happy to keep running, until the last of the light faded away and only stars could be made out through the sparse canopy above.

  By the time the wagon did come to a stop, they had left the grasses far behind. They were safe. Chandni breathed a long sigh and held Satyendra close.

  To her surprise, he opened his mouth and began to scream.

  Waking was as unpleasant as Pari expected. Muscles ached, joints locked up, stubborn, and bruises protested all over.

  It was dark around her, the three suns having set some time ago. She wondered how long she had slept. Not long enough, replied her body.

  The luminous Godroad cast a pale glow onto the night’s clouds. Pari allowed it to guide her, grunting and groaning, towards it. Soon, a choice would have to be made. Much as she would like to examine the bodies of the assassins more carefully for clues, and question Lord Rochant’s staff about Dil’s movements, she knew she couldn’t. Dil had named a Tanzanite as the one behind the attack effectively preventing her from approaching any of Rochant’s loyal staff for help.

  Besides, both Rochant and his last living descendant were outside the castle now, and they both needed her help.

  As she slowly approached the Godroad, a feeling of unease crept over her. A prickling of skin on her arms, followed by the thudding of her heart, beating out a warning. Suddenly sure she was not alone, Pari whirled round. The castle floated high above, lights winking in its windows. Below it, hidden in the dark, was the chasm, surrounded by moss covered rock. And there was something else too. Something she could not see, staring back at her.

  Something of the Wild.

  Twenty feet from where she stood, two orbs, milk white, split the darkness. Big enough to be human eyes but too close together for a human face, with no discernible pupil or iris. They rose from behind some rocks to match her height, making a slow, hypnotic circle.

  Pari had been on hunts before. Not as frequently as some, but she had done her duty as a Tanzanite. On those occasions she had worn her crystal skin, and been suitably armed, flanked by a dozen hunters. Here, tired, alone, with no weapon sa
ve an earring, she remembered why to most people ‘Wild’ was synonymous with ‘fear’.

  She tried to gauge if it was going to attack. Some creatures would wait for their victim to turn their back, others would strike regardless. Though she had no idea what she was facing, there were still clues in its behaviour that she could learn from, clues that might just save her life.

  However, all Pari could think was: That thing isn’t a head!

  The unblinking eyes continued to move languidly, holding her attention. A distraction, a sleight of hand. The attack will come from elsewhere. And as she realized this, she became aware of a second, subtler movement to her right, drawing swiftly closer.

  At the last moment, Pari threw herself to one side as teeth flashed into view, snapping shut in the space where her neck had just been.

  She looked for the mouth but it had joined the shadows again, invisible. Every so often she thought she could make out shapes moving to flank her, one on her right, one on her left. And all the while the milky eyes continued to circle before her, placid and patient.

  Opening her arms wide, Pari stepped forward and shouted as deeply as she could. The creature flinched, giving her a brief impression of its size, three blind heads attached to a flat body on sinuous necks. Her first instinct had been correct, the thing distracting her was the creature’s tail. Pari did not even bother to try and count its myriad legs, instead turning and running for the safety of the Godroad.

  Her feint bought her a few precious seconds and then she heard the sound of pursuit, a pattering multitude of tiny limbs scratching stone and kicking up dirt.

  She wasn’t nearly fast enough. There was no snapping at her heels but she could feel how close the creature was, the hairs on the back of her neck rising.

  It was getting ready for a final strike. At least it would be brief, she thought. Another part of her had time to wonder where the creature would bite and how distasteful the Bringer’s tattoo would be for the next rebirth, when something flew over her left shoulder to thud against the creature’s shell.

  ‘Keep going! You’re almost there!’ came a voice from the Godroad, young and female.

  Pari didn’t argue, focusing all her attention on the welcoming light just ahead. She put her head down as another missile flew past, and another, the sounds of impact followed by a strange lisping snarl.

  The last few metres were uphill with the Godroad set a further six feet above the rock. Momentum tailed off as she forced her tired legs up it. Just a little further, she urged herself, come on!

  But it was no use. She had already pushed her body well beyond its limits. Her fingertips were able to touch the curved lip of the Godroad but she lacked the strength to pull herself into its protective light.

  A man watched her from the Godroad’s edge, his feet either side of her hands.

  ‘Help me,’ she wheezed.

  He started to lean down towards her but hesitated mid-motion. Pari could understand why. There were many stories about goodhearted travellers being lured to their doom by monsters wearing a human face. So long as he stayed on the road, he was safe.

  ‘Quickly,’ she added, ‘before it gets me.’

  ‘How’d I know you’re a person, straight and true?’

  ‘If I was of the Wild I’d talk less and look much more appealing than this.’

  ‘Thas fair,’ said the man, and leaned out, his hand open, stretching out over the lip of the road. She threw herself towards him, her hand locking onto his wrist.

  There was a sound like someone vomiting behind her, and then something hard struck her between the shoulder blades, shattering like a rotten egg. Pieces of matter spattered over her shoulders and arm, a large chunk hitting the man’s bicep and sticking there.

  The force of the impact sent her to her knees, and the man was nearly pulled off the road to join her, but another pair of hands grabbed onto his belt, holding him precariously.

  Pari could hear a hissing sound. At first she thought it was the creature, and then she realized it was the sound of her clothes burning where the spit had touched them. She glanced at the man’s arm and saw steam rising from the edges of the gobbet.

  She made to push him away but he was having none of it. ‘Heave!’ he shouted, and the two of them began to pull. Pari dearly wanted to help but there was nothing left inside. All she could do was make herself as easy to drag as possible.

  As the man’s upper body came back into the protection of the Godroad, the mucus disintegrated, turning to mist then air in seconds.

  The crystal light of the Godroad rippled as Pari was pulled up and she felt herself held by it as surely as the man.

  Safe.

  She was safe.

  The three of them flopped down on the Godroad, panting.

  When she turned back to see what the creature was doing, she saw nothing. No milky eyes, no noise, it was if the thing had never been there.

  But it was still there, Pari was sure of it.

  She glanced back to her saviours to catch a look passing between them. The man was younger than she’d first thought, with a familial resemblance to the girl next to him. She appeared barely into her teens, and the man only a few years on top of that.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘Not a monster. Just a very, very tired woman.’

  The man pointed to a cart behind him. ‘You can sleep on there if y’want. It’s plenty soft.’

  ‘Please. I’ll need you to help me on.’

  Though they were skinny, they were strong, and the two of them made short, if unceremonious work of putting Pari onto the cart. As soon as she was in, they went to the back and started to push.

  The two youngsters wore the garb of House Sapphire servants, long blue tunics trimmed in grey, over darker trousers with blue piping, but it hung from their frames, the fabric vibrant against their dirt smudged skin. She could sense a nervousness that put her in mind of her first life, when she was still learning to deal with the excitement that accompanied being naughty. There was a story here, and a part of Pari itched to learn what it was. However it was only a small part: the majority of her was far more keen to enjoy the lulling of the cart as she rested her aching bones.

  Each wheel had crystal threaded through the spokes, and these hummed merrily as they moved, infused with the power of the Godroad, not enough to lift it into the air, but enough to make the cart glide at a touch.

  Such vehicles were expensive, owned only by a select few, and rarely found alone, especially not in the hands of poor teenagers.

  It did not surprise her that, a few hours later, when they thought she had fallen asleep, they crept up to her with cord, and bound her wrists and ankles.

  The arms that bore baby Satyendra were not his mother’s. Where hers were soft, comforting, these dug into him, greedily stealing the heat from his naked flesh.

  Something else was with his mother now, something that had looked at Satyendra as they’d been swapped by the Whispercage, and rippled, and taken his image.

  He missed his mother and father. He missed the many smiling faces from the castle, and he was afraid. And yet he did not cry out. Fear gripped his throat, some instinct telling him that to make a noise would be to draw attention to himself. Perhaps the Whispercage would hear the sound. Perhaps it would turn its hooded face down to him again.

  Satyendra did not want that.

  They moved swiftly through the trees, ever deeper into the Wild. Around them, the trunks were old and crooked, their branches interlocking savagely with one another to form a tangly mesh above. Thick vines joined in the mess, energetic, their skin visibly pulsing to some alien heartbeat.

  Only the odd shard of sunslight reached down to the forest floor, and even this seemed tentative, like a child dipping its toe into a hot bath. Satyendra stretched towards the glimmer of red, desperate to touch something warm, but his arms were too short, the distance too great, and soon it was behind him, gone and forgotten. Inexorably, the Whispercage spirited him onwards, into the Wild, into
the gloom.

  They came to a clearing where maimed roots poked from the earth, gnarled and bone-like. Three figures awaited them there. Each was vaguely man shaped in appearance but even Satyendra could see that they weren’t human.

  In place of hair, ropes of skin sprouted from their heads, draping over shoulders and hanging down, the ends brushing their toes to make living robes, sleeveless. They were tall, not as tall as the Whispercage, but far wider, with brawny limbs and bright red skin. Their ears were large and budded with fine antennae that stood up as Satyendra was brought towards them.

  But there were differences between the three. The face of the first was featureless, save for three eyes arranged asymmetrically. The second had no eyes at all, his face dominated by a slash of mouth, vertical, that ran from forehead to chin, while the third had neither eyes nor mouth, his face a harsh triangle broken only by a single nostril.

  ‘What this? What this?’ said the one with the mouth. ‘Crunch hears a Whisper. Does it bring the Red Brothers a gift?’

  The Whispercage said nothing but extended its long arms forward, offering Satyendra.

  ‘It does! It does! Do you see it, Eyesore? Is our gift promising?’

  Eyesore clapped his hands.

  ‘Good! Smell it, Pits, tell us if it’s good and ripe.’

  Pits stepped closer, his hands probing the air before him until they brushed against the rags of the Whispercage. Then he stopped, leaned over Satyendra, and sniffed.

  All the while, Satyendra kept very, very still.

  Pits sniffed a second time, long and indulgent, and then, in an echo of Eyesore, clapped his hands.

  ‘Gift!’ said Crunch, starting to clap as Pits stopped. ‘Whisper brings us a gift!’ He paused, then nodded to himself. ‘I have first chunk.’

  Eyesore shook his head, then slapped his own chest with a broad palm, prompting Pits to do the same.

  ‘I first!’ insisted Crunch.

  The brothers stumbled closer until all three stood together. Then they began bumping each other’s fists in a trial of strength, slowly at first, then faster, harder, until knuckles cracked and their fleshy hair swayed violently with each impact.