The Skybound Sea Read Online Free Page B

Mouth.”
    “Mother Deep won’t deny you.”
    “She’s going to cry out, Mouth.”
    “All because of you.”
    Ignore them
, he told himself.
They’re nothing. You find her. You find her and everything will be fine. You’re going to die. They’re going to kill you for what you’ve done. But she’ll live and everything will be fine
.
    It was the kind of logic that could only make sense to the kind of man who ran through hell.
    He carried that logic with him as he would a holy symbol as he found the decrepit building. He carried that logic with him through the door and into it.
    Before they had taken to housing the wounded here, it had been a warehouse: decaying, decrepit, stagnant. When it was filled with the sick and the dying, it had been no cheerier. The air had hung thick with ragged breaths, gasps brimming with poison, groans of agony.
    But it was only when Hanth found the room still and soundless that he despaired.
    In long lines, the sick lay upon cots against the wall, motionless in the dark. No more moaning. No more pain. Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating faces that had been twisted earlier that morning. A sheen, glistening like gossamer, lay over faces that were now tranquil with a peace they would have never known before.
    His eyelid twitched. He caught the stirring of shadows.
    “Hanth?”
    And he saw Kasla. Standing between the rows of beds, she stared into a darkness that grew into an abyss at the end of the room, like blood congealing in the dead. He laid a hand upon her and felt the tremble of her body.
    “We have to go,” he said firmly.
    “The city …”
    “It’s not ours anymore.” He tugged on her shoulder. “Kasla, come.”
    “I can’t, Hanth.” Her voice was choked. “It won’t let me.”
    He didn’t have to ask. He stared into the shadows. He saw it, too.
    There was movement: faint, barely noticeable. He would have missed it entirely if he didn’t know what lurked in that darkness. Even if he couldn’t see the great, fishlike head, he knew it turned to face him. Even if he couldn’t see the wide, white eyes, he knew they watched him.
    But the teeth he could see. There was no darkness deep enough.
    “Child,” its voice was the gurgling cries of drowning men. “You return to us.”
    It was instinct that drove Hanth to step protectively in front of Kasla, old instinct he strove to forget once. Logic certainly didn’t have anything to do with it; he knew what lurked in that shadow.
    “And where are your tears?” the Abysmyth asked. “Where is your joy for the impending salvation?” It swept its vast eyes to the dead people lining the walls. “Ah. The scent of death may linger. It should not trouble you. They are free from the torments their gods saw fit to deliver to them.”
    The demon moved. A long arm, jointed in four places, extended from the shadows. Viscous gossamer ooze dripped from its webbed talons.
    “They were cured,” it said, “of many things at once.”
    “Keep them,” Hanth said. “Keep the dead. Keep the living. The girl and I will leave.”
    “Leave?” The Abysmyth’s head swung back and forth contemplatively. “To what, child? Do you think me so compassionless as to you let you run to a deaf and lightless eternity? To cast you from bliss?”
    “I will keep my burdens.”
    “What does a lamb know of burden? What does it know beyond its pasture? There is more to life. Mother will show you.”
    It shifted. It rose. A painfully emaciated body, a skeleton wrapped in ebon skin, rose up. Its head scraped the ceiling. Its eyes were vast and vacant as they looked down upon Hanth.
    “Mother will not abandon any of her children.”
    He heard a scream die in Kasla’s throat and leak out of her mouth as a breathless gasp. Hanth met the demon’s gaze.
    “Ulbecetonth is gone,” he said flatly. “And she’s gone for a reason.”
    He began to step backward, forcing Kasla to move with him toward the door.
    “She can have her endless blue. You and