They would call him a monster.
He called himself the Mouth.
But before that, he had called himself something else, he recalled. He’d had a name. He’d had a home. He’d had memories; he still did. The Prophet was cruel to keep him from being absolved of them, but perhaps there was a point to their withholding. Perhaps he needed to remember why he forsook name, home, land and sky alike.
And so, when he came to the rotting doorframe of a house long abandoned, when he felt his heart begin to ache as he laid a hand upon the splintering door marked with a large red cross, he fought against the urge to turn away. He pushed it open. He went in.
Shadows greeted him. They still knew him. They had been around for a long time, ingrained into the wood of the house itself. They had seen all. They remembered all. And he read their lightless testimony as he drew his hood back and walked across the rotting floorboards.
He walked past a doorway; the shadows told him of a kitchen that had never been stuffed, but had enough to make stew every night. He walked past a rotting table; the shadows spoke of three bodies seated there, breaking a single loaf of bread to share. He walked to the decrepit stairs at the edge of the house.
And the shadows asked him to turn away. They remembered what happened. They told him he would not want to see again.
But he went up, regardless. The stairs knew him, offering the same creak of complaint they had offered him for years. He paused beside them, staring at a barren spot upon the wall where the shade was a tad lighter than the rest of the decay. A holy symbol had hung there once, the great cresting wave of Zamanthras, the Sea Mother, as a ward against the woes of life and an invitation for the goddess’ boon.
He remembered that symbol. He remembered when he had hung it up. He remembered when he had taken it down. He remembered when he had screamed questions at it, demanded answers and received nothing. He remembered when he had hurled it into a dying fire. He had forgotten to stoke it that night. Someone else usually did that.
But there had been no one else left that night.
He glanced back to the door, frowning. A lesson learned, he told himself; he knew that the Gods were impotent and did not care. Surely, nothing more could be gained from venturing farther upward.
Nothing …
But he went, anyway. The shadows lamented his return and told him of the long hallway he had once paced back and forth across. They warned him against going to the room at the far end. But he went, anyway.
And he saw the shadows in a small, decrepit room. And he saw the shadows of a small, decrepit cot. It had been a tiny thing, one that he had built hastily when the girl who lay in it grew too big for her crib.
He smiled. The shadows did not have to remind him of when he sat beside that cot and told stories. He remembered them all on his own: the Kraken and the Swan, Old King Gnash, How Zamanthras Stained Toha’s Sand Blue. He remembered the promises made beside it: how the girl who lay in it and he would go to Toha one day and she would see the blue sand, how she would one day captain a ship that would dwarf his little fishing skiff, how he would build her a bigger bed in a few months, at the rate she was growing.
But it was only a few days later that the girl who lay in it stopped growing altogether.
The shadows didn’t have to tell him that. He remembered it all on his own.
But the shadows were not silent. The shadows spoke of the healer who had knelt beside the little cot. The shadows spoke of heads that shook, eyes that closed, condolences offered and arrangements advised. The shadows spoke of threats, of pleas, of prayers he had offered to the healer, to their Talanas, to his Zamanthras, to anyone who would listen.
No one answered. No one ever answered.
The shadows spoke of the day when that little cot lay empty. The shadows spoke of the day when he sat beside it and cradled his head in hands. The shadows spoke of the day when he pressed his hands against his ears to drown out the sound of the waves. The waves that the girl lay in.
That was where their memory stopped. That was where his stopped. That was where he was no longer neighbour, no longer father, no longer slave to the Gods.
He narrowed his eyes; that was the day when, in the silence, he had heard the voice of Mother Deep. That was the day when he forgot his name. That was the day the Mouth had left the shadows and the wood and the city behind entirely, swearing he would not return until he could change the world.
And now, he had. And now, he could.
He stared down at the vial of Mother’s Milk, narrowing his eyes. This was what it had come to. This was how the world would be changed. The Mother would be free. But for Her to reign properly, to guide mankind from their blind darkness, She would need a consort.
The Father must be freed.
And this was the key, this was what would draw Daga-Mer from the prison he had been so cruelly cast into. This was what would call to Mother Deep, to free Her from the Gate, to let Her guide her children and through them mortalkind. And this would all happen … through him.
He knew where Daga-Mer’s prison lay; he heard the Father’s call, he heard the distant beating of his heart as he slumbered. He closed his eyes, let the memories slip from his mind, let the sound of the heartbeat, the sound of change waiting to happen, fill his thoughts.
And all he heard was a door slamming shut, feet across the floor.
Fool, he scolded himself. They know. They’re coming for you. You wasted too much time. Run!In his other hand, the weight of a bone dagger made itself known. No … no, you can’t run. If anyone knows you’re here, they must be eliminated. They can’t tell anyone you were here. They can’t know … not yet.
With the blade in his hand, he crept to the stairs, narrowed his eyes. He was unrepentant as he searched for the life he would snuff out; change was violent, after all. He saw the intruder now: a mess of wild black hair atop a thin body clad in a poor person’s linens. A spy, maybe? A beggar, probably. No matter; he was going to die, regardless. This was no sin. If one had to die so that the others might live, then that was just …
His thoughts were interrupted by the deafening sound of the stairs offering their familiar creak.
The intruder’s head snapped up. Wide, brown eyes took him in. A thin, dark-skinned face went slack with fear at the sight of him. And he could feel his own face go slack, his own eyes go wide, his own lips speak words.
‘A … girl?’
‘I’m not doing anything!’ she spoke up. ‘No one’s lived here for years.’
‘I used to,’ he replied without thinking.
And her response was to turn swiftly and bolt, the door swinging in her wake.
He was leaping over the railings in a moment, following after her. It was only after a hundred paces that he realised he had dropped the knife back in the house. It was only after a hundred fifty that he realised he didn’t mind. He didn’t want to kill her. He just wanted to …
To what, he asked himself. Look at her? Think of duty! Think of change!
But he could think of nothing else, he realised, but her face. Her thin face, her wide eyes. He had to see her again. He had to look into her face again.
He saw the back of her head as she twisted through the alleys, trying to lose him. His cloak flew wide open as he pursued, trying not to be lost. His body, pale white and fingers webbed, was plainly visible. He did not belong amongst these dark-skinned island people. They would know him. They would call him monster. His mission would be over. Change would never come.
But he had to see her.
‘Wait! Wait!’ he called after her. ‘I’m not angry! I just want to talk!’