Blood of the Red

Chapter 4 - Shallo

Chapter 4 – Shallo

Whispers and shadows in the Towers of Silence. On benches of stone the dead lay beneath open skies. Five tall towers offered corpses to the heavens. The central tower reached above four others, set around it at the compass-points. In these private heights flesh fell from rotten limbs, carrion birds feasted on eyes that had seen a lifetime. The bones lay where they fell, unattended. Skulls grinned at the cold tatters of cloud strung above them, and conversed with the ravens, whose diligent hunger picked them clean.

An old raven strutted amidst a ribcage, the bones stark white against his glossy blackness. His beady yellow eyes fixed upon something new. A quartered circle of iron, no broader than a beak-length. He cocked his head to the side and took a step toward it. He paused. He was old, this raven, and steeped in the wisdom of his kind. Uttering a raucous shriek of warning he took to the air in a dark explosion of wings. Birds rose on every side, and within moments the tower stood empty of life.

Nothing but silence underwrote the moaning of the wind. Until the whispers came. Nothing moved but dry skin in the breeze. Until the shadows writhed like snakes. The darkness lived. Gloom gathered around the dead, defying the winter sun. Like black ivy, darkness wrapped the ribs where the raven had stood. Night clotted around the bones, thick and textured. Darkness pooled and ran, climbing and spreading until the skeleton that owned the ribs, and two others on neighboring benches, were each clothed in midnight flesh. Smooth black fingers closed around the iron disk that had so tempted the old bird.

"She has failed us." The voice insinuated itself into the air.

"The witch has failed." The second creature agreed.

All three stood together. Their umber faces perfect, sculpted from jet, inhuman in their beauty.

"The Blood of the Black cannot be denied. We will send another to claim the key."

They turned to face due south, their unwavering stare fixed on the horizon, above and beyond the frozen wastelands of Sark. Together they bent their will toward one end. Black lips whispered a name,

"Shallo."

"Shallo."

"Shallo? That's an odd name." The young man studied her intently, waiting for a response. "Are you even listening to me?"

"What? Sorry." Shallo shook her head and tried to focus on their conversation, "I'm so sorry, August dear, I thought I heard somebody call me... It's a very old name. It came to me from my mother's line in the west of Sark. Her family can trace their bloodline to the days of Arthur."

August sniffed and polished his nails on his embroidered jacket. "Sark! A dreadful place by all accounts. I wouldn't boast of any such heritage if I were you. I can see it now though, you have the fair skin of a Sarkasian, pale, like milk, very becoming."

Shallo smiled, she knew it was not her skin that drew men to her. She knew also that nothing in her was conventionally pretty. Her hair lay lank and colourless, her eyes were ice-water and too narrow, her mouth too small. Even so, they came. Perhaps some unspoken promise hung about her. A look that said she knew exactly what they wanted, and a promise to deliver.

She sipped her wine, perfectly at ease. "I've never been to Sark, but perhaps I should. I burn in the shade every summer. A land of ice and snow might suit me."