‘ Spikything,’ a third gasped. ‘It’s spiky! But how does it work?’

‘No idea,’ the first female grunted. ‘It can’t be that hard, though.’ There was the sound of shuffling, knuckles rapping wood. ‘There’s some kind of … stick thing. What’s it-?’

A snap. Wood rattled. Air shattered.

The Mouth froze as a purple blur fled past his pillar. He stared as it came to a halt against the stone. The netherling gasped, laying wide eyes upon him. She tried to say something through a mouth quickly filling with blood.

Possibly due to the massive spear jutting through her belly and pinning her to the wall. She squirmed once, spat once, then died upon the wall.

And a grating, wailing roar of joy swept through the temple.

‘Did you see that? Did you see it?It was all-’

‘ TWANG!Yeah, and then it was all fwoomand she just went flying!’

‘Look at that! Killed her right there! Look at her just hang there!’

‘Could you make it twangfaster? Could it be fwoomier?’

‘Yeah, you could! Just put more spikes on it!’

‘Right! More spikes and you could just kill anything.’

The low, morbid chuckle that swept the temple was the first female, Qaine.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘We’re takingthis.’

‘Quite done?’ the male asked. ‘Want to collect the one on the wall?’

The Mouth tensed.

‘Who gets shot with a giant spike and deserves to get pulled down?’ Qaine grunted. ‘That’s not a bad spike, though …’ She hummed as the Mouth gripped his knife tighter. ‘But we can make it spikier.’

‘Shootier,’ another female agreed.

‘Stabbier,’ a third said.

‘ Twangier.’

‘Yeah,’ Qaine said. ‘Take it to the ships. Round up the sikkhuns. They’ve eaten enough.’

There was the sound of crates crunching under rolling wheels, grunts of effort as something massive was escorted out of the temple. A solitary breathing told the Mouth that he was not yet alone. He guessed by the lack of snarling accompanying it that the male still remained.

‘You could have stopped this,’ the male whispered.

The Mouth’s eyes widened. He tensed, preparing himself. The knife was tight in his hand, though he wasn’t sure how much difference it would make. The males used magic, he recalled. A flimsy little spike made of bone would be useless against such power.

Throw it, then, he told himself. Distract the male, then escape. There would be time enough to return later, to return to his home, to find what he had left behind, to say good-bye to …

What about the mission?he asked himself. What about the deal?

‘But you didn’t …’

The male hadn’t struck yet. Who would he be talking to, then?

‘Your people paint the stones red with their blood. Your shrines burn. You lay shattered on the floor … and I walk away.’ The Mouth could hear the sneer in the male’s voice. ‘If you were real, you’d do something.’

There was a long silence. The male waited.

And then turned and strode out.

It was some time later before the sound of dying and the war cries of the invaders faded outside. The Mouth waited quietly before he even thought to move.

And by then, he realised he was still not alone.

Soft feet on stone floors. Frantic breathing. Terror in every sound. Not a longface, then. Then there was the sound of slurping, the desperate gulping of water that belonged to the scared, the sick, the dying. He remembered that sound.

And as he turned, he remembered the girl. She stared up from the pool, wide-eyed beneath a mop of wild black hair. Her face was dirtier than before, covered in soot. Her hand was deep in the sacred pool, her cracked lips glistening with holy water.

No, he reminded himself, waters of a prison, that which holds back Daga-Mer. You’re to free him, remember? Remember?

Of course he did. But he also remembered her, her fear, her desperation, her name. He opened his mouth to speak it.

‘I don’t care,’ Kasla said before he could. ‘It’s not holy. If it was, She would have done something.’ The girl pointed to the shattered statue of Zamanthras. ‘And now nearly everyone’s dead! Stabbed, bled out or eaten by those … things. And She did nothing.’

The Mouth followed her finger. Zamanthras’ stone eyes stared at him blankly: no pity, no excuse, no plea for him not to do what he knew he must. He stared down at the vial in his hand.

Thick, viscous ooze swirled within. Mother’s Milk. The last mortal essence of Ulbecetonth, all that was needed to free Daga-Mer from a prison unjust. He looked to the pool, and as if in response, a faint heartbeat arose from some unseen depth within the massive circle of water.

A distant pulse, reminding him with its steady, drumlike beat.

He leaned closer, as if to peer within, to see what it was he was freeing. He saw only his reflection, his weak mortality distorted and dissipated as ripples coursed across the surface. Kasla, the girl, was drinking again, noisily slurping down the sacred waters of her city’s goddess.

The Mouth found himself taken aback slightly. It was just water, of course, but he had expected her to show more regard for that which her people revered.

But her people lay dying outside. No goddess answered their prayers, just as no goddess had answered hers. She drank as though every drop would be the last to touch her lips, as though she need not fear for anyone else. She was alone, without a people, without a holy man, without a goddess.

The humane thing to do would be to free them all, he told himself, to lift their sins of memory and ease the anguished burdens heaped upon them by a silent deity. To free them, he would free Daga-Mer, and be free himself. His own pain would be gone, his own memories lost, as would hers. And without anything to remember, they would be free, there would be nothing left, they would be …

Alone …

She looked up, panicked as he approached her. She backed away from the pool.

‘Get back!’ she hissed. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong! I was thirsty! The wells, they’re … the things were drinking from them. I needed water. I needed to survive.’

The Mouth paused before her. He extended a hand, palm bare of knife hilt.

‘Many people do.’

She stared at his hand suspiciously. He resisted the urge to pull it back, lest she see the faint webbing that had begun to grow between his fingers. He resisted the urge to turn to the pool and throw Mother’s Milk into it. They were there, the urges, the need to do them.

But he could not remember why he should leave her.

Kasla took his hand tentatively and he pulled her to her feet. She smiled at him. He did not smile back.

‘We both got here unseen,’ he said, turning towards the sundered doors of the temple. ‘We can help others get here, too, until the longfaces leave. There will be enough to drink.’

‘The waters are sacred. They would fear the wrath of Zamanthras.’

‘Zamanthras will do nothing.’

She followed him as he walked out the door into sheets of pouring rain and the impotent, smoking rage of fires extinguished.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked at last.

He paused before answering.

‘Hanth,’ he said. ‘My daughter’s name was Hanta.’

She grunted. Together, they continued into the city, searching the fallen for signs of life. Hanth stared at their chests, felt for their breath, for want of listening for groans and pleas. He could not hear anything anymore.

The heartbeat was thunder in his ears.

Forty-One

Togu stared from the shore. When he was smaller, at his father’s side, he recalled days of splendid sunsets, the sea transformed into a vast lake of glittering gold by the sun’s slow and steady descent. He had always been encouraged by such a view, seeing it as a glimpse into the future, hisfuture as chief.