the well’s blackness, and that is different. Different is interesting, so Nahadoth does not remove the boy’s face. Yet.
“So it isn’t true.” The boy, who has bent to plunge his head into what resembles a pool of relentless black, laughs a little. (This tickles.) “They said…Well, they say a lot of things about you.” He straightens, wiping his face without thinking, then looks surprised to find his hand dry. Then he chuckles again.
There is something in the boy’s laugh that Nahadoth understands. That unsteadiness, with a core of emptiness. That little waver, as if the laugh teeters between humor and hysteria and utter falseness. There is a black hole in this one’s soul.
“Haangratsajim,” the boy says, bowing with a flourish. “That’s my name, if you’re wondering. No one here can pronounce it—it’s Ostei—so I’m just Haan now. It’s on the papers they gave me. Haan Arameri, bought and paid for, all proper.”
Ostei no longer exists. The gods’ warring destroyed it and its inhabitants, save for a handful of survivors. Nahadoth remembers seducing a princess there once, before Itempas’s madness. That princess had been a wild creature, irresponsible and full of joy, who had drawn Nahadoth’s attention by standing on a cliff and shouting at the moon. For no particular reason, she’d said, when Nahadoth manifested and drew her close and kissed more shouts out of her. Because life. Ostei had been full of wild ones like her.
This one is different, Nahadoth senses—a cold wildness, rather than hot.
“Bought and paid for,” the boy whispers, and then his face changes. He turns as this happens, so that his back is to the well and his face is out of sight. Or he would be, if the room’s shadows were not also Nahadoth, and if Nahadoth actually needed eyes to see. So Nahadoth sees the sudden bloom of teeth in the shadows and understands that the boy is smiling a hunter’s smile.
“I am a thing,” the boy says softly. “That’s what they’ve decided I am, and so that is what I will be. A thing need not bother with human niceties, yes? So now they will see.”
This is more interesting than Nahadoth had assumed. He settles in to watch, glad of a respite from the boredom.
* * *
The boy goes away eventually. Nahadoth chooses not to think for a time.
But he roams, because he cannot help himself. Everywhere there is darkness, Nahadoth exists. (In the language that Itempas has created, Nahadoth is the word for things that cannot be perceived, cannot be comprehended, can only be unleashed.) He does not pay attention to most of what he detects via the dark that is his ears and skin and teeth and guts. Most of it is routine, and supremely boring. Stars—sparkle flare sparkle. Planets—spin shatter spin. Life—chatter chitter chatter. The unutterable tedium of a breathing, beating universe.
(But it is more interesting than the universe before Itempas, so he does not complain.)
Nahadoth supposes he should pay attention to the locality that encompasses his flesh more often, since most of him will be confined here for the foreseeable future. He is aware of this whereness, peripherally, because the body occasionally demands his attention. It hungers; it itches; someone has poked it. It sleeps and tries to dream, though his presence within it sucks the dreams away into a dark place. Remarkably irritating, these interruptions, as much by their constancy as their banality. Perhaps Itempas means to annoy him into submission.
Anger. That is a thing, too.
He reverberates with anger, then snarls and makes himself stop when he inadvertently harmonizes with the vibration of the universe. The universe is an angry place these days, but he does not want harmony of any kind. Itempas can force him into a kind of union, into the shape of this flesh, but Nahadoth will not join with Itempas again willingly , which is what Itempas wants. ( Nahadoth also means “that which cannot be controlled.”)
Yet
“So it isn’t true.” The boy, who has bent to plunge his head into what resembles a pool of relentless black, laughs a little. (This tickles.) “They said…Well, they say a lot of things about you.” He straightens, wiping his face without thinking, then looks surprised to find his hand dry. Then he chuckles again.
There is something in the boy’s laugh that Nahadoth understands. That unsteadiness, with a core of emptiness. That little waver, as if the laugh teeters between humor and hysteria and utter falseness. There is a black hole in this one’s soul.
“Haangratsajim,” the boy says, bowing with a flourish. “That’s my name, if you’re wondering. No one here can pronounce it—it’s Ostei—so I’m just Haan now. It’s on the papers they gave me. Haan Arameri, bought and paid for, all proper.”
Ostei no longer exists. The gods’ warring destroyed it and its inhabitants, save for a handful of survivors. Nahadoth remembers seducing a princess there once, before Itempas’s madness. That princess had been a wild creature, irresponsible and full of joy, who had drawn Nahadoth’s attention by standing on a cliff and shouting at the moon. For no particular reason, she’d said, when Nahadoth manifested and drew her close and kissed more shouts out of her. Because life. Ostei had been full of wild ones like her.
This one is different, Nahadoth senses—a cold wildness, rather than hot.
“Bought and paid for,” the boy whispers, and then his face changes. He turns as this happens, so that his back is to the well and his face is out of sight. Or he would be, if the room’s shadows were not also Nahadoth, and if Nahadoth actually needed eyes to see. So Nahadoth sees the sudden bloom of teeth in the shadows and understands that the boy is smiling a hunter’s smile.
“I am a thing,” the boy says softly. “That’s what they’ve decided I am, and so that is what I will be. A thing need not bother with human niceties, yes? So now they will see.”
This is more interesting than Nahadoth had assumed. He settles in to watch, glad of a respite from the boredom.
* * *
The boy goes away eventually. Nahadoth chooses not to think for a time.
But he roams, because he cannot help himself. Everywhere there is darkness, Nahadoth exists. (In the language that Itempas has created, Nahadoth is the word for things that cannot be perceived, cannot be comprehended, can only be unleashed.) He does not pay attention to most of what he detects via the dark that is his ears and skin and teeth and guts. Most of it is routine, and supremely boring. Stars—sparkle flare sparkle. Planets—spin shatter spin. Life—chatter chitter chatter. The unutterable tedium of a breathing, beating universe.
(But it is more interesting than the universe before Itempas, so he does not complain.)
Nahadoth supposes he should pay attention to the locality that encompasses his flesh more often, since most of him will be confined here for the foreseeable future. He is aware of this whereness, peripherally, because the body occasionally demands his attention. It hungers; it itches; someone has poked it. It sleeps and tries to dream, though his presence within it sucks the dreams away into a dark place. Remarkably irritating, these interruptions, as much by their constancy as their banality. Perhaps Itempas means to annoy him into submission.
Anger. That is a thing, too.
He reverberates with anger, then snarls and makes himself stop when he inadvertently harmonizes with the vibration of the universe. The universe is an angry place these days, but he does not want harmony of any kind. Itempas can force him into a kind of union, into the shape of this flesh, but Nahadoth will not join with Itempas again willingly , which is what Itempas wants. ( Nahadoth also means “that which cannot be controlled.”)
Yet
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