Leviathan's Blood (30 page)

‘They did not follow.’ He looked up at the warm roof of the tent. ‘If you listen carefully, you can hear them approach now.’

Silence fell around the room. At first, Heast could hear nothing but the sound of the waves, and beneath that, the movement of life outside the tent, the men and women who spoke and moved on the
dirty sand of Wila. But then, as if it were a heartbeat slowly emerging from the womb of a pregnant woman, he began to make out voices. He could not understand the words as they grew louder, and
that confused him until he realized that it was a language he did not know. Worse, the language was one that Heast had never heard, and it slowly dawned on him that the words were completely alien,
and that the volume in which they were spoken was one that grew and grew until it filled the tent as it wished to do to the world.

The woman screamed for mercy, but Ayae had none.

She had never considered herself a violent person, either in desire, or intention, but she was aware, as she left the soldier of the Empty Sky trying desperately to pull melted armour from her
body, her voice caught in the shrill, awful panic of someone in pain, that she had become capable of shockingly violent acts. The realization felt small as she crossed the bridge, the wet length of
Faise’s finger in her hand, as if the acknowledgement from her conscience was unnecessary, a concession after the fact. The rest of her had already accepted it, condoned it, moved by the
knowledge that she was unable to withstand another loss to a deep, integral part of herself that had been damaged when she had lost Mireea.

Lost her
home.

But not yet her family.

She had met Faise the night she had arrived in Mireea. Huddled in the back of a cart, she had been one of fifteen children to leave Yeflam, where the aid boat from Sooia had come into port
shipping water.

Her arrival in Mireea had signified a new part of her life. Behind her were men and women who were thin, strained and humourless. Her skyline was dominated by the solid wall that had been the
edge of her world, the boundary she was forbidden to step beyond. She had, of course, and she had feared that she would be taken, that she would be killed or, worse, that she would draw
him
, Aela Ren, the Innocent, from the empty, scarred land. Her life behind the wall was one without parents, a life of vulnerability that she would only fully appreciate later. The men and
women who had led her and the others onto the ship floating low in the water had appeared so straight, so pure, that a part of her childish self had thought all white people were saviours, even
when they gave new names to the children whose names they could not pronounce. The orphanage at the end of that journey had appeared before her like a mansion, huge and extravagant, as a sign for a
new life.

Inside, the large, red-faced matron who would come to dislike Ayae had led the aid workers and their found children through the big, high-roofed dormitories in an imposing silence. She spoke
only when she separated them by gender, the first floor for boys, the third for the girls. The second was the home of the matron and her staff, physically and morally guarding the virtue of the two
groups. It was late when the matron finished assigning beds for them all, and in the big window of the girls’ dorm, the stars were laid out so clearly that she could see the wide alien spread
of them for miles upon miles. Their strange emptiness was a sudden violence and she stood staring at it, while the other children introduced themselves.

It was only when a hand touched her from behind that she realized she had been ignoring all attempts at conversation. The hand was pudgy and brown, and it belonged to a girl who had the bed next
to her.

Beneath Ayae’s bare feet, the hard ground began to pass quickly, her speed increasing, the bridge and the dead soldiers falling further behind her.

Xeq
, the woman had told her.
The Commander is on Xeq.

Around her, the streets of Yeflam were beginning to fill, men and women wandering, some in pale-blue armour, others in the robes of priests, their voices seeking to spark (‘Today! She
will—’ ‘—our Heavens and Hells will return—’) but finding little tinder in most of those stepping out. The houses loomed and dipped and the flags of the
approaching bridge slipped into view. She would have to cross through Ghaam to reach Xeq, but the path would take her away from Zaifyr. The morning’s sun sat high in the sky and the heat from
it began to settle into the stones, but for Ayae, there was no chill to be warmed away.

The carriages she chased had left tracks, from the faeces of the horses, to the hard skid of the wheels as they hit the bridge, but Ayae knew that she would not have to search hard for where
Faise and Zineer had been taken. The Empty Sky were not secretive. They were proud. They were open. Ayae would be looking for a compound large enough to house private soldiers and carriages, a
compound large enough for a man who, in the absence of true military rank, called himself Commander Bnid Gaerl.

‘My name,’ the girl had said, long ago at breakfast the first morning, ‘is Faise.’

They had sat at long tables in the dining room, everything around Ayae so large it was cavernous. In front of her were rows and rows of food, and all of it looked and smelt strange, from soft,
white bread, spreads in jars with labels she could not understand, and fruits of colour and taste that she had never seen or eaten before. She did not know the name of anything that was before her
and she had trouble understanding the conversation taking place around her. Most of the girls and boys in the room spoke the traders’ tongue too quickly for her, proficient with it in ways
that she and the others who had learned it in Sooia were not.

Yet, for all the strangeness, and not knowing that soon the matron would single her out and speak so threateningly to her, Ayae felt safe.

She had been given new clothes and the girl who sat beside her, who had spoken her name –
Faise
, she remembered repeating to herself – was now explaining to her slowly what
was good to eat and what was not.

Soon, the streets of Xeq began to unravel around Ayae. She had run faster than she thought she could, run harder than she knew she should have, and pain began to creep into her feet, but she did
not stop.

Neither did the men and women of the Empty Sky who appeared on the street.

‘She has come to watch you fail,’ the inky black figure said. ‘That is her only goal, her only desire in Yeflam.’

Zaifyr watched the being’s movements across the stone edges of the tower. Before each half-jumped step, the creature cocked and turned his head in the direction of the Northern Gate, the
gate that the child would enter through. Then the long, four-fingered hands would press onto the hard surface in caution before he moved, taking two steps before turning around to take another,
pacing as if trying to shake and dry himself. Yet, he could not have moved so carefully and slowly when he made his way up the tower to stand before Zaifyr, for that climb required a sure and
dexterous grip. ‘Are you a deceit?’ Zaifyr asked, finally.

‘Perhaps.’ That curled smile presented itself again. ‘She has never known it, if so.’

‘You can keep your mind from her?’

‘She has no interest in what I think.’ He dropped into a crouch. ‘I am her eyes, but I have more independence than the others she has made, according to your
brother.’

‘Eidan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jae’le should hear this.’

‘Tell your older brother in your own time.’ The creature’s blind gaze settled on Zaifyr, his expression still, like a statue. ‘Already she draws near the gate. Soon, she
will force me to open my eyes and see where I am. We will both be in trouble if I am still here.’

‘How does she not already know?’

‘I have fallen into Leviathan’s Blood. She believes it only because her attention is elsewhere and she does not like the ocean. I am not that clumsy.’

‘She did not make you clumsy,’ he said.

‘No, she did not.’

‘What else does Eidan say?’

‘He has not sided with her,’ the creature replied. ‘It may be hard to see at first. Many will say that he could walk away if he so desired, but it is not true. He is a powerful
man, your brother, and all her creations fear him, but she does not.’

It was difficult to imagine his brother was captive. Zaifyr said, ‘I will speak with him when he arrives.’

‘He will not be able to speak with you. Neither of us will be able to speak once she is here.’

‘Then how do you two conspire in Ranan?’

The inky smile twisted sourly. ‘She is still a child.’

The child was not omniscient, then. She could see through the eyes of whoever she had made and could exert her will over those living creatures, but after that, she would struggle. In Leera,
there would be corners for his brother to hide in, tunnels he had dug, hidden beneath trap doors, surrounded by hard earth. Eidan was not a man given to fancy: he was methodical, exacting in his
thoughts, and by slow process he would have found all the parts of Leera he could rest quietly in away from the sensation of being devoured. It was not impossible for Zaifyr to imagine the large
man and the small creature in a cave of stone, deep beneath the sweltering marshland. ‘What do the two of you plan?’

‘She cannot continue,’ the creature replied. ‘The pain she inflicts cannot continue. No more like me can be made.’

‘I thought she had destroyed you,’ the charm-laced man said. ‘There was nothing of you left after she had used you.’

‘She kept me.’ The creature’s long arms wrapped around itself, the limbs lost against the smooth black skin. ‘I cannot explain it, beyond that. I remember a feeling of
being caved in, as if my very own being was being crushed. I saw you, but you were not the cause of it – the cause of that suffocating pain I saw later, when I awoke in a cathedral. I came to
awareness on a hard floor, with her face above me, looking much as I did as a child. Beneath her eyes I could not move. It was as if I was pinned to the ground by spikes. As she witnessed my
anguish, she told me that that was what she would name me, and try as I might to resist it, I answer to it. But I did not suffer the worst. There was one who killed her favourite. For him, she
fashioned a charm of a loved one.’

‘Where is this charm?’

Anguish shook his head. ‘Gone with the man who killed her favourite, but she is here now because of what he did. She did not wish to come here, but after her favourite died, there was no
one to take her place, no one to guide her Faithful. She had no choice. It is why you must not waste this opportunity – for if you do, all of us will suffer.’

‘I am trying,’ Zaifyr said, a touch of frustration in his voice. ‘It is difficult, though. I have too many dead who are close to us now.’

‘Your brother gave me a name to pass on to you,’ the creature said. ‘He said that you would not like it, that you would resist it. It is a name that belongs to the ancient
dead.’

Zaifyr blanched, grateful that the expression was lost on Anguish, who had begun to fidget on the stone ledge. He could feel the child, stronger than before, which meant that she had reached the
outskirts of Yeflam. She would soon step onto the Northern Bridge and the small being’s eyes would open. ‘The ancient dead are not like you. They are punished by the gods. Where would
Eidan get the name of one?’

‘He did not say.’ Anguish turned on the ledge of the tower, his fingers spread across the stone, ready to launch himself. ‘What your brother did say was that beneath Yeflam
there was one of the ancient dead. He said that his name was Lor Jix. He was the Captain of
Wayfair.
That is what he said.’

Then he was gone.

Heast pushed aside the cloth door of the tent and stepped out.

The chanting from the bridge was louder. It drifted over the edges of the stone bridge above Wila and washed ashore between the low waves and cold wind from the black ocean. It had roused the
Mireeans and they gathered around their canvas homes, in pairs at the furthest point from the bridge, and then in groups of four and five, growing larger and larger until, at the dirty edge of the
island, they stood like half a stained ring. ‘Caeli,’ he said, not turning to face the woman behind him. ‘Find Lieutenant Mills. Tell her to make sure the guard is spread
throughout the island as a precaution.’

‘Sir.’

After she had left, the Captain of the Ghosts turned to the stone bridge above him.

It had filled so that he could see men and women standing around the thick edges at the end furthest from the gate. As the chant rose and fell, he saw a young boy climb onto the wall of the
bridge. He had dark, olive skin and was thin and without a shirt. Timidly, he rose once he was sure of his perch, and stared further up the bridge. As he did so, another boy followed him, this one
white. A tall, olive-skinned third followed and then, lastly, a black girl climbed up. Once all four were up, they began to move along the ledge. Heast imagined that they had seen lines of
brown-robed men and women on their knees at the gate of the bridge and, drawn by the chant, had decided to make their way there, unaware that beneath the robes, hands clutched knives and
swords.

‘Do you think the girl is our enemy?’ Muriel Wagan said, standing at his side in the door of the tent. ‘That she is the child Zaifyr spoke of?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

Heast turned to her, but she did not meet his gaze. Instead, she watched the bridge, watched the children who were moving slowly but surely along it.

‘Since we left Mireea, I have had dreams where I kill a child,’ she said quietly. ‘It is not every night. Just once a week, maybe twice. I see her playing in an empty room. She
has hair like spun gold and is a very pretty child. Each time I see her, I approach with a knife in one hand and a cloth in the other. As I get near, the room she is in falls away, revealing the
ruins of Mireea. The ground shakes with earthquakes and giant bones appear suddenly. Through it all, she does not acknowledge me, not until I step on gravel. When that happens, she turns to me and
smiles. I reach for her, but my hands are old and bent and it is too late.’