the ocean that the Sea Mother has forgotten. They have tainted the waters, as they do all things, and blackened the sea such that no living thing remains between here and their temple.’
Her voice changed suddenly. What had begun as liquid song that slipped through his ears soundless became heavy and bloated, a salt-pregnant wave that seemed to steal the air from the sky as she spoke.
‘The fish shall be the first to flee, being closest to their taint. The birds shall be chased from the sky. The clever beasts shall hide where they can. The brave will die. As will all things that walk upon land. Mortals drown. Sky drowns. Earth drowns. There shall be an unholy wave born of no benevolent tide. Nothing shall remain . . . save endless blue.’
Endless blue.
That phrase had passed through fouler lips before. Lenk tightened his grip on his sword, holding it firmly in his hand, but still in his lap. There would be time to dwell on cryptic musings later.
‘Swim to the point, then,’ he growled. ‘What does any of this have to do with the tome?’
‘Consider it a warning,’ she replied, unhurried, ‘passed through all children of the Sea Mother of what shall come to pass if that foul thing of red and black remains in the possession of the demons. It is a reminder of all that the Kraken Queen craves, all that her children seek to return her for.’
‘And the actual location of the tome?’
‘It is . . . not here.’
‘Well.’ He slapped his knees with an air of finality. ‘Thanks for that, I suppose.’
‘Not here,’ she continued, undeterred, ‘but close. You are but an hour away from it, in fact.’
‘Now that is helpful.’ Denaos, who had previously been lying on his back and scratching himself, rose to his feet and stretched. ‘Let’s get it and put this whole fish and prophecy business behind us, aye? Screechy here knows where it is.’
‘I do.’ The siren nodded. ‘And I know what guards it.’
Denaos paused mid-stretch, sighed and sat back down.
‘Of course you do.’
Lenk was less rattled. It was rather apparent that the siren would not be telling them this purely for the sake of their aversion to being choked by ooze.
‘What do you want from us, then?’ he asked.
She stared at him without expression, spoke without hatred or fury.
‘I want you to kill, Silverhair.’
That figures.
‘Kill . . . what?’
‘I take no great pleasure in asking you, but the plague must be cleansed. The Sea Mother’s dominion must be restored.’
‘So you want us to kill more Abysmyths.’
‘Curb as many symptoms as you can, yes, silence the coughing and the wheezing where necessary. But for a plague of this nature to be cured, the tumour must be cut out.’
Her lips pursed tightly, eyes narrowed as her utterance reverberated through them like a dull ache.
‘You must kill the Deepshriek.’
A moment of silence passed before Lenk sighed.
‘You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?’
‘They . . .’ The siren paused, looked at the ground. ‘It . . . was once like myself. A child of the deep, a servant of the Sea Mother . . . but no longer. Long ago, when the skies were painted red and She still befouled the mortal seas, the Kraken Queen sang to the Deepshriek and the Deepshriek listened. Now . . . it is her prophet, the one who shall return its mistress and mother to the waking world.’ She looked back up at Lenk with a swiftness fuelled by desperation. ‘Unless you take the tome back to whatever foul hand it came from.’
Lenk hesitated at that, leaning back and sighing. Frankly, he thought, he could have done with just being told the location of the tome without hearing the inane claptrap of a deranged sea beast. As it was, the temptation of a thousand gold pieces was slowly beginning to lose its lustre.
He suddenly became aware of Kataria sitting next to him, a blank expression on the shict’s face. Leaning over, he yelled.
‘SHE SAID THE TOME IS—’
‘I HEARD WHAT SHE SAID!’ the shict snapped back violently. ‘The deafness wore off ages ago, you stupid monkey.’
‘Oh.’ He smiled meekly. ‘Well, great.’
‘Yeah—’
‘This . . . is rather a lot to take in,’ Asper said breathlessly, as though just recovering from some unpleasant coitus. ‘Demons upon demons, tomes and diseases . . . it’s hard to decide what to do next.’
‘If you’re an idiot, I suppose,’ Denaos replied. ‘Obviously, we run.’