one
of them down. As Cal was about to set the corpse tent alight, it occurred to
me Isobel would want to see her father’s body. I went to shift Solomon’s
desiccated remains outside.
Erik’s
shrill whistle gave me just enough warning to keep my feet when the captain of
the mutants grappled with me. The two of us staggered in an ungainly
pirouette, Ash clinging to my shoulders, and to my hips as well, with monkey-like
claws in place of feet. His teeth snapped at my cheek. Seizing him in turn I
butted him in the face, but instead of the expected crunch of a nose breaking,
the center of his head folded in, as soft and pulpy as a rotten melon. Having tempered
his bite, I grabbed his wrists to throw him off, but not before he had hooked
up a shank from the ground with one of his claw feet.
Though
I knew what was to come, I was helpless to prevent it.
He
drove the sheared metal rod into my abdomen, just under the ribs, and out my
back. The sensation was one of an indescribable cold, at first around the
shank, then radiating throughout. Ash disappeared and the world turned on end as
Ajer Akiti’s shocked expression filled the sky.
I
knew no more.
An Unexpected Detour
From
a featureless amaranthine void, I stepped again onto the streets of the
nameless city of my old dream, and went among the hooded, candle bearing figures.
I walked until I was surrounded, and as always the mob subjected me to their
whispered, then roared, mantra, until terror drove me to waking. It was a familiar
fear however and I quickly set it aside, kicking at the sheets and wishing for
a thicker cover as the sweat chilled my skin in the too cool room.
I
pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked about. Pale starlight revealed crowded
rows of gambrel roofs outside the window, which surely meant I was in Arkham.
The industrial green sheets and sterile hush placed me in St. Mary’s Hospital.
What fresh mistakes had brought me here? I considered whether I had been
admitted for an overdose, but the protocol for drug users was to send them to
the Asylum, a fact I did not like to dwell on. I twisted around to confirm I
was alone, and felt a disagreeable tightness a few inches above my pelvis. I
rested my hand on a ridge of scarred tissue. The wound was long-healed and
painless, but a lump pressing into my hip provided another distraction. I
reached beneath me to grab hold of a coiled leather belt that, for some reason,
triggered the flood.
Isobel’s
face flashed in my mind’s eye, and Erik, Ajer, and my crewmates on the
Asphodel, then Zij and the ports of the Southern Sea. I lay back, my end
approaching with the speed and implacability of a freight train, and experienced
again the thrust of jagged metal which had severed me from my friends and, so I
had thought, my life. For one vertiginous moment, I wondered if it was all the
elaborate fantasy of a man in a weeks, or months, long coma. As I struggled to
make sense of the chaos, my hand of its own accord followed the length of belt
and grasped the sheath of my pearl-handled dagger.
I
cried aloud with this discovery, as in the same moment a nurse entered the room.
Beneath the covers I clutched at the hard lump of the sheath, my anchor to the
place I had left behind, but kept it concealed. The door closed behind her
with a soft click.
The
woman was tall, yellow-haired, and lovely in an indifferent way, as if chiseled
from marble. Though St. Mary's was outfitted with gas light, she carried a
candle. An intolerably strong cinnamon scent wafted along with her as she passed
the foot of my bed to lower the blinds. She crossed the room again to rummage
about in a drawer, and slipped something into her pocket. My thoughts darted to
a syringe and morphine, and although much time had passed since I last indulged,
my pulse quickened.
“Miss,
how was I admitted here?” I asked. “Can you tell me the date?”
She
did not answer, but leaned over me to
of them down. As Cal was about to set the corpse tent alight, it occurred to
me Isobel would want to see her father’s body. I went to shift Solomon’s
desiccated remains outside.
Erik’s
shrill whistle gave me just enough warning to keep my feet when the captain of
the mutants grappled with me. The two of us staggered in an ungainly
pirouette, Ash clinging to my shoulders, and to my hips as well, with monkey-like
claws in place of feet. His teeth snapped at my cheek. Seizing him in turn I
butted him in the face, but instead of the expected crunch of a nose breaking,
the center of his head folded in, as soft and pulpy as a rotten melon. Having tempered
his bite, I grabbed his wrists to throw him off, but not before he had hooked
up a shank from the ground with one of his claw feet.
Though
I knew what was to come, I was helpless to prevent it.
He
drove the sheared metal rod into my abdomen, just under the ribs, and out my
back. The sensation was one of an indescribable cold, at first around the
shank, then radiating throughout. Ash disappeared and the world turned on end as
Ajer Akiti’s shocked expression filled the sky.
I
knew no more.
An Unexpected Detour
From
a featureless amaranthine void, I stepped again onto the streets of the
nameless city of my old dream, and went among the hooded, candle bearing figures.
I walked until I was surrounded, and as always the mob subjected me to their
whispered, then roared, mantra, until terror drove me to waking. It was a familiar
fear however and I quickly set it aside, kicking at the sheets and wishing for
a thicker cover as the sweat chilled my skin in the too cool room.
I
pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked about. Pale starlight revealed crowded
rows of gambrel roofs outside the window, which surely meant I was in Arkham.
The industrial green sheets and sterile hush placed me in St. Mary’s Hospital.
What fresh mistakes had brought me here? I considered whether I had been
admitted for an overdose, but the protocol for drug users was to send them to
the Asylum, a fact I did not like to dwell on. I twisted around to confirm I
was alone, and felt a disagreeable tightness a few inches above my pelvis. I
rested my hand on a ridge of scarred tissue. The wound was long-healed and
painless, but a lump pressing into my hip provided another distraction. I
reached beneath me to grab hold of a coiled leather belt that, for some reason,
triggered the flood.
Isobel’s
face flashed in my mind’s eye, and Erik, Ajer, and my crewmates on the
Asphodel, then Zij and the ports of the Southern Sea. I lay back, my end
approaching with the speed and implacability of a freight train, and experienced
again the thrust of jagged metal which had severed me from my friends and, so I
had thought, my life. For one vertiginous moment, I wondered if it was all the
elaborate fantasy of a man in a weeks, or months, long coma. As I struggled to
make sense of the chaos, my hand of its own accord followed the length of belt
and grasped the sheath of my pearl-handled dagger.
I
cried aloud with this discovery, as in the same moment a nurse entered the room.
Beneath the covers I clutched at the hard lump of the sheath, my anchor to the
place I had left behind, but kept it concealed. The door closed behind her
with a soft click.
The
woman was tall, yellow-haired, and lovely in an indifferent way, as if chiseled
from marble. Though St. Mary's was outfitted with gas light, she carried a
candle. An intolerably strong cinnamon scent wafted along with her as she passed
the foot of my bed to lower the blinds. She crossed the room again to rummage
about in a drawer, and slipped something into her pocket. My thoughts darted to
a syringe and morphine, and although much time had passed since I last indulged,
my pulse quickened.
“Miss,
how was I admitted here?” I asked. “Can you tell me the date?”
She
did not answer, but leaned over me to
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