Warning: contains zombie-related body horror.
Welcome to the storm, I am thunder
Welcome to my table, bring your hunger
-- The Amazing Devil, The Horror and the Wild
While the sun was still in the sky there was enough warmth left in the air that Kitri didn't mind lying on the boat. But when it set the temperature dropped rapidly. Within half an hour Kitri was shivering.
It had never occurred to her to bring her coat before her hasty departure. She'd left her house wearing only a light shirt and pair of trousers. Neither were remotely suited to staying outside all night without shelter. Likewise her shoes were meant for walking around the town's well-kept streets, not for trekking over long and sometimes rough roads. Her feet were sore and she was sure there were blisters forming.
To distract herself from the cold and pain she began to hum an old lullaby her mother had used to sing to her. All she remembered of its words were the lines "The birds have gone to bed and the stars dance with the mijomdor[1]." She repeated those lines over and over almost without realising it and without understanding what she was saying. She wrapped her arms around herself and pulled her knees up to her chest to stay as warm as possible.
In the distance she gradually became aware of a sound. It was grass rustling in the wind. But there was no wind. And it was feet thudding against the road. But no one would go for a walk without a torch, and she didn't see any light. It dawned on her that singing, even quietly and incoherently, had been a very bad idea.
She fell silent and listened. The sound drew nearer. It came in short bursts interrupted by long silences.
Overhead the moon rose. It was only the jarvanmiëlótur[2] and it gave little light. Rather than making anything clear it threw the landscape into patches of incomprehensible darkness and light. But the light played tricks on the eyes and turned bushes into trees, hills into flat land, and revealed nothing.
Kitri turned so she was lying facing the bank she'd left. Most of it was deep in shadow. A few faint beams of light shone on the small hill that rose from the bank. The blades of grass growing on it looked as sharp as knives against the shadows beyond.
What I wouldn't give for a nice hot cup of tea, she thought morosely.
It had been hours since she ate anything. In fact, had she eaten at all today? She couldn't remember. She'd had so many more important things to worry about that she didn't think she'd even thought of food. And now she was both hungry and thirsty.
Carefully she inched closer to the side of the boat, taking care not to make any noise that might draw the attention of anything lurking in the darkness. When her hand reached the boat's edge she reached down and dipped her fingers in the water. Then she brought them to her mouth. She repeated this until she'd managed to drink a few drops of water, enough to temporarily stop her feeling so dreadfully thirsty. It would have been so much faster and more convenient if she'd been able to sit up and scoop up handfuls of water, but she didn't want to make any noise if she could help it.
She inched back to her original position in the middle of the boat. Sleep was still far away and the biting cold made her shiver. Kitri silently recited all of the fairy-tales she remembered her mother telling her. When she couldn't remember any more she moved on to a list of the earliest cases she'd heard. That case about the murder in the bakery had been a very confusing one. Everyone who knew the victim had hated him and eight different people had both the motive and the opportunity to kill him. In the end no one had been found guilty and the case was still unsolved. And then there was the case of a dispute over fences that led to both parties building ridiculously high fences and writing insults on them. And her first case of all had been--
The noise started again. It was closer this time. It sounded like a crowd of people walking very slowly and unsteadily. Kitri's blood ran cold. She looked at the distance between her boat and the bank, calculating whether or not she was far enough away. The monsters had never been very intelligent. If they didn't see or hear her, maybe they would pass on by. In the worst case scenario they would only be able to stand on the bank and snarl at her. Surely they couldn't swim.
The noise stopped. The silence that followed was worse than the noise itself. Kitri strained her ears to hear what was happening. Then abruptly it started again. This time it was unmistakeably heading in her direction.
Damn you, Abihira! Kitri thought as loudly as she could, in the extremely unlikely chance that Abi might hear her and undo whatever she'd done.
Again the noise stopped. It went on like this, starting and stopping and each time getting closer, for what felt like hours. The moon passed overhead and sank towards to the horizon. Although the monsters were there they remained stubbornly out of sight.
Kitri took a deep breath and tried to think calmly. Maybe the monsters were just looking for a place to cross the river. If so, they'd find the bridge before they found her. Some legendary monsters were said to be unable to cross running water, so with any luck they would still be trapped on this side of the river. If that legend wasn't true, then the bridge was narrow enough that they couldn't cross it quickly. It had taken them half the night to get from the town to here. It would take them longer to get to the next town. Someone would see them and raise the alarm even if Kitri was trapped here. She had nothing to worry about.
Nothing to worry about, she repeated to herself as the noise drew nearer. Nothing to worry about. Nothing--
Her thoughts stuttered to a halt.
Something moved beyond the hill. It was at the top of the hill and starting down towards the riverbank before her brain registered what her eyes were seeing. A woman crawled over the grass towards Kitri. Both of her legs were missing. She pulled herself along on arms that were covered in bitemarks and missing chunks of flesh. Behind her an elderly man lurched over the hill. He was missing an arm and half of his face. Following him were more monsters, crowded together until Kitri's eyes couldn't distinguish one from another in the dim light.
The first monster crawled right up to the water's edge. When her hand landed in the water she recoiled with a miserable and pained moan. Then... Nothing. The monsters stood motionless on the riverbank. They didn't even seem to be aware of Kitri's presence mere feet away. She lay as still as a statue and hardly dared to breathe.
Eventually some sort of silent communication seemed to take place between them. As one they turned to the left and began shambling further along the bank. Kitri watched, relieved but confused, as they vanished into the darkness.
~~~~
Kitri didn't know when or how she'd managed to fall asleep. It was a shock to wake up and find the sun beginning to rise. She looked over at the riverbank. It was deserted. Her initial relief faded quickly when she realised the world was still unnaturally quiet. No birds sang. No frogs croaked.
She considered her options. One, she could stay here until she knew where the crowd was. Two, she could set off for the next town and hope she got there without running into them. Neither was appealing. But she had to do something, and she'd rather be on the move than sitting here helplessly.
She grabbed the rope and began to pull the boat fully across the river. The pulley gave an agonising and far-too-loud screech. Kitri's head snapped around and she scanned the bank behind her for any sign of the crowd. Nothing yet, but she pulled faster.
~~~~
Irímé had never travelled much before. He and his mother had gone back and forth between Neleth Ancalen and Eldrin when visiting Abi, yes, but those had hardly been pleasant trips. Not with his mother constantly breathing down his neck. And the one time his whole family had gone on holiday abroad ranked as one of the most miserable experiences of his life. He'd taken sick shortly after arriving, and instead of letting him rest his mother insisted on dragging him along on all of their sight-seeing trips. Irímé was sure that the kingdom of Nabevsky was a very nice place if you were able to enjoy it. He hadn't been, and now he couldn't hear its name without remembering how awful he'd felt.
But this trip was nothing like any of those ones. First there was the airship journey to Veiteos. Irímé had been on airships before, but never overnight. It was both thrilling and slightly scary to pull back his room's curtains and see clouds below him.
Siarvin, it turned out, had a fear of heights. He spent most of the journey on the airship sitting with his back to the window so he couldn't see just how high they were. When an unusually strong gust of wind made the ship sway he turned green and started to pray. Shizuki, on the other hand, loved heights and spent most of his time staring out the window. Irímé could tell it made both Siarvin and Koyuki nervous, but neither tried to stop him.
Things between Siarvin and Koyuki were very awkward in general. It wasn't that they were hostile towards each other, or even that they disliked each other. As far as Irímé could tell they simply had nothing in common and a painful past to try and forget. The only thing they agreed on absolutely was protecting Shizuki and giving him as normal a childhood as possible now he was away from Haliran. And if that meant allowing him to stare out the window and intermittently beg Irímé to take him flying, so be it.
Irímé didn't really mind Shizuki's entreaties and had no intention of giving in to them, but all the same he was relieved when the airship arrived at Veiteos. Other, overly-curious passengers who overheard Shizuki assumed Irímé had to be some sort of bird immortal, and asked him what his bird form was.
"A bluebird," Irímé said, giving Shizuki a warning look when he seemed to be about to protest.
When the passengers moved on Shizuki pouted and asked why Irímé wouldn't tell people he was a dragon immortal.
"Because I don't want everyone to stare at me," Irímé said with a grimace as he remembered his time stuck in dragon form.
At least when they disembarked at Veiteos there was no longer much chance of Shizuki asking him to go flying. Maybe that was why Irímé now had time to notice something was wrong.
He first sensed it as the train left Veiteos. It was like the echo of an echo, something so faint that he couldn't tell where it was coming from or even what it was beyond some sort of magic. But he knew without being told that it was something bad. He remembered the dark cloud he'd seen hanging over Abi. And he worried.
The train stopped in the town of Goyeor, the last town before it reached Tananerl. During the half-hour delay Irímé hastily sent a telegram to Abi. He didn't know exactly where she was now, so he sent it to Arafaren with instructions to forward it to her.
Something strange happening stop have you done something stop, he wrote. He would have explained more, but a glance at how much it cost to send a telegram to Eldrin made him change his mind.
Oh well. When he arrived in Tananerl he could write a proper letter.
~~~~
Ilaran could think of many things that annoyed him. People who asked stupid questions, for one thing. And records that were improperly filed, forcing him to hunt through half the archives to find them. But those paled in comparison to having someone else stuck in his mind.
He had never been fond of letting other people know his real thoughts. Nor did he want to know everything anyone else thought. Now he was forced to know a disturbing amount of what Abihira thought, and he knew that she knew just as much about him. At random moments he was forced to hear her opinions on something or other. It was driving him mad and it hadn't even been happening for a full day yet.
He flatly refused to consider what would happen if this was permanent. The idea was simply unbearable. All he could do was strengthen his telepathic shields while Abihira strengthened hers, and hope they could block each other out for a few hours.
When, after a long and stressful day -- mostly stressful thanks to Lian, Abihira, and their family drama -- he finally fell asleep, his last coherent thought was to hope this would turn out to be a dream.
His hopes were dashed shortly afterwards, when he opened his eyes to find himself in the garden of Szijosmajsa Palace. On its own there was nothing unusual about that. Szijosmajsa Palace in Ahalal's capital had been Ilaran's childhood home, and later where he and Nuvildu had lived during his time as King of Ahalal. He often dreamt about it. But what definitely was unusual was the other person in the garden.
Ilaran sighed wearily and frowned at Abihira. "I'd tell you to get out of my head, but I think that's impossible now."
Chapter Footnotes:
[1] mijomdor = Saoridhian word for their equivalent of the Northern Lights.
[2] jarvanmiëlótur = Saoridhian word for the waning gibbous phase of the moon.