The Skybound Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

the rest of your faithful can join her. One hell’s as good as another.”
    The demon merely stared. Its eyes were dead, unreadable. Hanth held his breath as he continued to back away with Kasla.
    “You don’t belong here,” he said, “and neither does your bitch of a mother.”
    The moment the demon lunged forward, he suspected he might have gone too far.
    A great black fist emerged from the darkness and smashed upon the floor in a splintering crater. The demon’s head followed, a great fish skull, skin black as the shadows from which it came. It trembled to show the fury its dead eyes could not.
    “You’re wrong!”
it gurgled. “We belong here! We
do!
It was you who drove us out! You who rejected us!” It pulled the rest of its body out of the shadows, tall and thin and quaking. “We offer you
everything
and you deny us still! Call us monsters, call us beasts, call Mother a … a …”
    Its voice became a formless roar as it burst out of the shadows, sprinting forward on long, skeletal legs. Hanth seized Kasla’s hand. Without a word, he hauled her toward the door, as fast as fear would carry them.
    “You don’t even care!”
it bellowed after them.
“You don’t even care! Look at what you’re doing! You’ll ruin everything!”
    They burst out the door, fled down the wet, sticky streets. The Abysmyth’s voice chased them.
    “He comes! You’ll see! You’ll see we’re right!”
    The roads were thick with stale fear and moisture. The heavens roiled and bled like a living thing. The city was bereft of humanity, but not life.
    The frogmen came out in tides, pouring out of every alley mouth, leaping off of every roof, bursting from every doorway. Hanth swept his eyes about for escape and wherever they settled another emerged. They ran from reaching hands and needle-filled mouths.
    Every egress was blocked by pale, hairless flesh. Every movement monitored and met with a shrieking chorus from the Omens flying overhead. Every word he tried to shout to her was lost in the whispers that rose from the waters beyond and sank into his skull.
    “Can’tfleecan’tfleecan’tflee …”
    “Nogodsnoprayersnoblasphemynothingnothingnothing …”
    “Hecomeshecomeshecomes …”
    And then, all noise from nature and demon alike, went silent before the sound.
    A heartbeat. Like thunder.
    A great tremor shook the city, sent them falling to their knees. There was the sound of rock dying and water wailing and skies screaming. Hanth tried to rise, tried to pull her up, tried to tell her she would survive, tried not to look to the temple.
    He failed.
    Cracks veined the domed roof, growing wider and wider until they shattered completely. Fragments of stone burst and fell as hail. A shadow blacker than night arose to kiss the bleeding heavens. The creature turned; a pulsating red light at the center of its chest beat slowly.
    Water peeled from its titanic body, mingling with the red rain. With each tremor of its heart, roads of glowing red were mapped across its black flesh. It groaned, long and loud, as it rested its titanic claws upon the shattered rim of the temple’s roof. Its head lolled, eyes burned, jaws gaped open wide.
    Daga-Mer, alive and free, turned to heaven.
    And howled.

TWO
IN THE GRISTLE
    B eneath Lenk’s feet, a world turned slowly. Not his world.
    That world was back on dry land, back where the dawn was rising and people still slept in dread of the moment they would have to open their eyes. That world was full of traitors and fire and people who walked around pretending he had no reason to kill them.
    That world was where he had slept for the last two nights with the sound of a voice in his head, a voice that whispered plots and told him he had no choice but to kill those people. That world was where he had fallen asleep last night.
    He suspected he might be dreaming, still.
    That would explain why he was standing on the water like it were dry land.
    That world swirled beneath him. He had watched