book contains?’
‘I don’t care,’ he snarled through gritted teeth. ‘I gave my word I’d return it.’
‘Your word is an iron weight in deep water. What is your true purpose to come with such heresy in your heart?’
‘One thousand pieces of gold,’ he answered without hesitation.
‘Meagre riches!’ the Deepshriek roared. ‘Fleeting! Trifling! They give you pleasures you will forget and in exchange forsake your purity and chastity. You would trade power, the power to return the Kraken Queen to her proper seat for shiny metal? There are infinite worlds of golden garbage in the deeps, forever clenched in the drowned hands of those who would die with it. You are no different.’
‘I haven’t been paid yet. If I die, I won’t even have gold to drown with.’ The irony was lost on him in a sudden fury. ‘I’ve seen what comes out of the deeps. I’ve seen it die, too.’
‘So it was you,’ the Deepshriek seethed from below. ‘I heard the cries of the Shepherd as you callously cut it down. And so did Mother Deep hear the wails of Her children.’
‘I didn’t kill it,’ he replied, ‘but I put a sword in it. That’s one thing I can do to demons.’
‘Demon?’ It loosed an infuriated wail. ‘Demon? A word birthed by the weak and covetous to rail impotently against the righteous. You display your ignorance with such callousness. ’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You are blinded and deafened by hymn and terror for your false Gods. You would deny your place in the endless blue. You were not there, as we were, in ages past when Great Ulbecetonth reigned with mercy and glory for Her children.’
‘If you really are so old as that, you’re well past due for a sword in your face.’
‘This book has the power to return Her,’ the Deepshriek ignored him, ‘to return Her from worlds of fire and shadow to which She was so cruelly cast.’ Its voice became shrill, whining, pleading. ‘Join us, landborne. It is not too late to forsake this quest and aid our glorious mission. You, too, have a place in the endless blue . . . for the moment.’
‘I’ve heard stories that a demon’s promise is the bait to hook the mortal soul.’ Lenk eyed the shape, growing larger and darker beneath the surface as it slid towards his ledge. He held his sword tightly, planted his feet upon the stone. ‘I’d sooner believe that shicts bottled my farts than believe ... whatever in Khetashe’s name you are.’
The black shape rose wordlessly to the surface. Straining his eyes, Lenk thought he could make out the edges of stubby, jagged fins, like those of a maimed fish, and a long, thrashing tail that spanned an impressive distance from the creature’s already impressive mass.
Shark, he recalled, was the name of such a thing.
‘We tried, Mother Deep, how we tried.’ The Deepshriek muttered, whined and snarled all at once. ‘Let this waste of promise not enrage You.’
The surface rippled, parted. Lenk hopped backwards, levelling his sword before him. A pair of glittering, golden eyes peered up at him and he stared back, baffled. A woman’s face blossomed from the gloom in a bouquet of golden hair wafting in the water behind her.
Somehow, he had expected the Deepshriek to be more menacing.
Slowly, her visage rose from the gloom entirely and Lenk found himself staring at a pair of enchanting eyes set within a soft, cherubic face the colour of milk. She smiled; he found himself tempted to return the expression.
And she continued to rise. There were no shapely hips or swelling breasts to complement the beautiful face. From her jawline down, she rose from the darkness on a long, grey stalk of throbbing flesh. Her smile was broad, delighting in Lenk’s visible repulsion as he recoiled, sword lowered.
But he could not turn away, could not stop staring. He spied another feminine face, another pair of golden eyes framed by hair of the blackest night. Another bobbed up beside it with a mane of burned copper. They shared their golden-locked companion’s smile, revealing sharp fangs as they rose on writhing stalks.
In hypnotic unison, they swayed above Lenk, their sharp teeth bared, golden eyes alight against the green fire. They glided gracefully through the water to the outcropping’s flank, visibly delighted as Lenk hesitated to follow their movement.
‘What,’ he finally managed to gasp, ‘in the name of all Gods are you?’
‘We,’ they replied in ghastly symphony, ‘are your mercy.’
The golden-haired head snaked forwards suddenly, its lips a hair’s width from