Midnight tides

To feed the Azath? Or some ravenous denizen? Shurq had no idea. Nor did she care. The grounds swallowed bodies, and that was useful.

Kettle looked up, black eyes dully reflecting starlight. There were moulds that, if left unattended, could blind, and the film was thick over the girl’s dead eyes. She slowly rose and walked over.

‘Why won’t you be my mother?’

‘I’ve already told you, Kettle. I am no-one’s mother.’

‘I followed you tonight.’

‘You’re always following me,’ Shurq said.

‘Just after you left that roof, another man came to the house, soldier. And he was followed.’

‘And which of the two did you kill?’

‘Why, the one who followed, of course. I’m a good girl. I take care of you. Just as you take care of me-’

‘I take care of no-one, Kettle. You were dead long before I was. Living here in these grounds. I used to bring you bodies.’

‘Never enough.’

‘I don’t like killing. Only when I have no choice. Besides, I wasn’t the only one employing your services.’

‘Yes you were.’

Shurq stared at the girl for a long moment. ‘I was?’

‘Yes. And you wanted to know my story. Everyone else runs from me, just like they run from you now. Except that man on the roof. Is he another one not like everyone else?’

‘I don’t know, Kettle. But I am working for him now.’

‘I am glad. Grown-ups should work. It helps fill their minds. Empty minds are bad. Dangerous. They fill themselves up. With bad things. Nobody’s happy.’

Shurq cocked her head. ‘Who’s not happy?’

Kettle waved one grubby hand at the rumpled yard. ‘Restless. All of them. I don’t know why. The tower sweats all the time now.’

‘I will bring you some salt water,’ Shurq said, ‘for your eyes. You need to wash them out.’

‘I can see easily enough. With more than my eyes now. My skin sees. And tastes. And dreams of light.’

‘What do you mean?’

Kettle pushed bloody strands of hair from her heart-shaped face. ‘Five of them are trying to get out. I don’t like those five – I don’t like most of them, but especially those five. The roots are dying. I don’t know what to do. They whisper how they’ll tear me to pieces. Soon. I don’t want to be torn to pieces. What should I do?’

Shurq was silent. Then she asked, ‘How much do you sense of the Buried Ones, Kettle?’

‘Most don’t talk to me. They have lost their minds. Others hate me for not helping them. Some beg and plead. They talk through the roots.’

‘Are there any who ask nothing of you?’

‘Some are ever silent.’

‘Talk to them. Find someone else to speak to, Kettle. Someone who might be able to help you.’ Someone else to be your mother… or father. ‘Ask for opinions, on any and all matters. If one remains then who does not seek to please you, who does not attempt to twist your desires so that you free it, and who holds no loyalty to the others, then you will tell me of that one. All that you know. And I will advise you as best I can – not as a mother, but as a comrade.’

‘All right.’

‘Good. Now, I came here for another reason, Kettle. I want to know, how did you kill that spy?’

‘I bit through his throat. It’s the quickest, and I like the blood.’

‘Why do you like the blood?’

‘In my hair, to keep it from my face. And it smells alive, doesn’t it? I like that smell.’

‘How many do you kill?’

‘Lots. The ground needs them.’

‘Why does the ground need them?’

‘Because it’s dying.’

‘Dying? And what would happen if it does die, Kettle?’

‘Everything will get out.’

‘Oh.’

‘I like it here.’

‘Kettle, from now on,’ Shurq said, ‘I will tell you who to kill – don’t worry, there should be plenty.’

‘All right. That’s nice of you.’

Among the hundreds of creatures buried in the grounds of the Azath, only one was capable of listening to the conversation between the two undead on the surface above. The Azath was relinquishing its hold on this denizen, not out of weakness, but out of necessity. The Guardian was anything but ready. Indeed, might never be ready. The choice itself had been flawed, yet another sign of faltering power, of age crawling forward to claim the oldest stone structure in the realm.

The Azath tower was indeed dying. And desperation forced a straying onto unprecedented paths.

Among all the prisoners, a choice had been made. And preparations were under way, slow as the track of roots through stone, but equally inexorable. But there was so little time.

The urgency was a silent scream that squeezed blood from the Azath tower. Five kin creatures, taken and held since the time of the K’Chain Che’Malle, were almost within reach of the surface.

And this was not good, for they were Toblakai.

CHAPTER FIVE