The Bitter Taste, Page 2

  “Will I see you again?” Tepil asked at last.

  “One day. Either we will walk this place together for eternity, or we shall join mother and father in the afterlife.”

  She reached up and cupped Tepil's face in her palm. She suppressed a shudder as her thumb slipped inside the hole in his flesh, and she was thankful she couldn't feel his teeth beneath her finger pad.

  “Good bye, my sister,” Tepil murmured.

  “Good bye, brother. You will rest in peace.”

  She smiled faintly and moved away from him, turning her back to him as she left the hut. She didn't look aback as the door closed behind her, but she felt the void he left behind as the greying dawn light forced him back to his body.

  She stood and watched the dawn. It was a swirling kaleidoscope of colour, brimming with life and promise. She turned her back to it, walking towards the cliffs where she could look out over the lagoon. She knew he would be waiting there. She had always known he would be waiting there- when she was ready.

  *

  “I expected you sooner,” he said, not turning away from the ocean view as she came to stand beside him. “I didn't take you to be quite so sentimental...”

  “He was the last of my family, and I loved him dearly.”

  Yau glanced up at him, terrified despite the familiarity of his features.

  Finally he turned away from the view and looked down at her. He was shrouded in black- not material but something older than time. It clung to his body, moulding to the musculature. He did not have flesh, but he did have the front of a human skull over his face. The bone was old and yellowed. The jaw hung loose, giving him a permanent open grin. Within the maw she could see his tongue lashing about. She would have turned and run away but for his eyes. When he looked down at her she was engulfed and encompassed in the cold, uncaring beauty of the stars. She was safe in that gaze and she did not fear him as she would have done once upon a time. He had haunted her dreams all her life, walking with her as a child. He had been there when her first blood came. He had taught her the potions she had used to help the village. He had been there in her dreams when her parents had been taken, and he had held her in strong arms when she cursed the names of all the gods. He was the only one she had any faith left in.

  “I’m ready,” she said at last.

  “I know,” he replied, turning to stare back out over the ocean. His voice was deep and gentle in her mind. “I feel the power inside you,” he said after a moment. “I have nurtured and fed it for so long, but it has always remained immature. I feel there is no fear in you now. You are ready to wield the gifts I could give you.”

  He turned to face her fully and reached out a hand. Yau looked at it before taking it and allowing herself to be drawn into his embrace

  “Do you remember what I promised you?” he asked.

  “I do, and I am ready to accept my responsibility.”

  “I will give you unimaginable power. As I am lord over the souls of the dead, so I will give you dominion over their bodies- to use as you see fit.”

  “Yes,” Yau murmured.

  “Do you feel my power inside you? Can you feel the dead; their bones calling to you?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, her hands curling in the shroud of nothingness.

  “Accept it. Take the mantle and be my consort. Create with me a line of prodigy with dominion over the bodies of the dead.”

  “I accept it,” Yau said. “All of it.”

  She stared up at the skull, deep into the night-sky eyes.

  He was strong, his grip around her solid. She smiled and raised a hand to touch the skull. She remembered the fear he’d once inspired in her, but now that fear was replaced. She felt hope for the first time in a long time. She felt able.

  The bone was neither warm nor cold beneath her fingertips.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, pulling her against him. She moulded to the shape of his body.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and smiled as his shroud flared out to surround and encapsulate her inside with him.

  *

  Yau woke with the knowledge that life bloomed and grew inside her. She could feel it, growing and waiting to be born.

  She remembered everything. She could still feel the bruises from where Tepil had gripped her arms. She could feel the ache inside her from where the God of Death had poured his essence into her and given it the spark that would create life.

  She swallowed and waited as fear, rage and exhalation rampaged through her. She could feel the pull of the dead even now. She longed to call them up from their rest just as she had been instructed, and she longed to teach her child how to do the same.

  She moved at last.

  “I was beginning to think you would not wake,” Nan said, coming towards her with a small tray of foods. “The sun is already high.”

  “I slept for so long,” Yau said.

  “And you look better for it. There is peace in your eyes whereas before there was only rage and hurt.”

  “Why is there no sound of work from outside?” Yau asked at last as she ate.

  Nan’s expression saddened.

  “Today Amoxtl is buried. We must go to bear witness and usher his soul to the next world.”

  Yau winced at the pang in her chest.

  “And Tepil? Will the priests spare a prayer for him?”

  She already knew the answer, but she could not help asking the question.

  Nan looked away.

  “They cannot,” she said at last. “As much as I wish they could, you know it is not our way. The gods’ always demand a sacrifice for access to the underworld.”

  Yau said nothing, merely sipping at her drink. Nan watched her, sympathy plastered all throughout her expression.

  “I’m sorry, Yau,” she said at last. “I wish it could be different.”

  She touched Yau’s knee, her touch lingering for a moment before the she turned and went back to her herbs.

  Yau watched her for a few moments and then placed her cup and plate down.

  “I’m going home,” she said at last.

  Nan spun round. “You can’t-” she gasped, “the priests-”

  “I don’t care,” Yau snapped. “I cannot leave my brother to wader alone.”

  “The grief must be too much for you, Yau. You aren’t thinking properly!”

  “I’m thinking perfectly,” she said quietly. “The god’s have taken enough from me. I will not let them deny my brother also.”

  She left the hut, ignoring Nan calling after her. She was aware of the people watching her, of their whispers as she wrenched her home’s door open. She ignored them. She knew what she needed to do.

  No fire for two days had left the hut cold and uninviting. Yau left the door open to let the light in and made her way to the ceremonial altar. She stared at the hideous faces and felt her rage boil up again. She grabbed the knife and then, using a large stone, smashed the receptacle from the wall and defaced the holy depictions as best she could.

  She left the hut taking only the knife, a pot of salt and a small pack of supplies. She had no doubt she would never return here. In truth she had no intention to. Nan was her only connection to a village that already avoided her and her cursed family.

  She paused at the edge of the village to watch the procession that followed Amoxtl’s shrouded body to the burial ground. She nodded out of respect to him. He had been one of the last to stick by her family, and for that she owed him.

  She turned her back as they lowered him into the ground and began piling the dirt back over him. She had preparations to make before the sun sank below the horizon.

  *

  The breeze came from the sea. It was cold and salty and whipped around Yau as she sat watching the sun turn from burnished orange to blood red. It was time.

  She stood and moved back to the small altar she had made. Salt encircled it, giving her little room to move inside. She didn’t need a lot.

  The wind dropped and she felt his presence
. She turned. He came towards her, his arms open.

  She ran to him, willingly folding herself into the nothingness that always followed him.

  “I sense out child growing within you,” he murmured, placing a hand over her stomach. “She will be strong.”

  Yau smiled.

  He raised his hand, taking hers and holding it tight.

  “I have a gift for you,” he murmured. “A symbol of our joining.”

  He passed his hand over her finders. She felt cold numbness spread through her and she shivered, looking down.

  A smooth, solid black band rested on her left index finger.

  “This is for our daughter- and then for every first-born daughter throughout time. It will bring great strength to them.”

  “I will keep it safe for them.”

  He looked down at her. Yau smiled, pulled away and moved to stand in her circle. She took the knife from her belt and stared at it before staring back out to sea. The sun had disappeared below the horizon now and the sky was filled with blood red clouds.

  “I’m coming, Tepil. I swear it.”

  She placed the tip of the knife to her wrist. Sweat broke out between her shoulder blades as it always did at the thought of slicing herself open. She looked down at the criss-cross of old scars and smiled. There was no fear this time. She sliced the knife up from wrist to forearm and chanted the words her lord had whispered to her the previous night.

  *

  She dropped to her knees and pushed her hand to the soil, forcing her blood into the earth, calling to those whose bones lay within its embrace.

  She felt them answer- an echo of life as her rich blood lent them the power to move once more, to regrow the sinew and muscle they needed to rise.

  When she closed her eyes she could see through theirs- she could feel the grit in their sockets, knew the cold, suffocating pressure of damp soil. She urged them on- to scrabble and scrape until they were free of the rotted shrouds, to claw the earth away until she could see the stars.

  She turned her head towards the village, opened her eyes and watched as the ground erupted and the dead rose up, able and willing to do her bidding.

  She heard a scream, quickly followed by shouts and horrified moans as the dead all turned to face her, awaiting her command.

  She could see Amoxtl, his corpse the freshest amongst the dead. She felt nothing for him. Her friend was no longer there, but she knew he would want the honour.

  With a thought she sent them down to the lagoon. The older ones shuffled, barely able to control their movements, and with every movement the wind carried to her the wheeze of air trying to move through paper-dry lungs. The more recently dead moved faster, keeping pace with Amoxtl as he raced to finish what he had started in life.

  She turned to face her consort.

  “Perfect,” he rasped, his tongue lashing wildly in his broken mouth.

  “Oh Gods above,” another voice said.

  “Go home, Nan,” Yau said without even turning round.

  “Child, what have you done? Tounatil protect, you deal with devils this night!”

  “Tounatil is powerless to protect. Look at the sky- already he sleeps.”

  “Yau, stop this- you cannot wake the dead, you are not a God- you earn the wrath of them all with this.”

  “Not all,” said Yau, and she smiled, looking directly at Nan. “You were kind to me,” she said. “I’m sorry- but I will not leave my brother to wander lost, not when the Lord of all Souls waits so patiently for him.”

  “Yau, please- it is not too late- give the dead their rest, come back with me- it is not too late”

  “It was too late the minute the priests gave my parents to the Harvest.”

  Yau gave Nan one long, sorrow-filled look, and then turned back to the sea. She closed her eyes and groaned as she stared through a multitude of focal points.

  She felt their minds, sluggish and decayed and gave them two simple orders – Find Tepil's remains, and also to kill any sea maiden that tried to stop them.

  Her inner vision blurred as they disappeared under the water, and instinctively she pushed more energy into their eyes, changing them until she could see again.

  She gasped. It was beautiful. The water was clear, if dark, and every living creature had a glowing aura of white light that seemed to illuminate the water around it.

  She pushed the dead forward, almost in a trance she raised the sacrificial knife and sliced open another artery. The more blood they had the stronger her small army would be. She didn't hear Nan's cry of fear, or the deep satisfied sigh of the God- all she knew was that she could see the sea maidens, and their inky black eyes were filled with curiosity and a slowly growing fear as the dead moved ever closer to their lair.

  Yau grinned and the blood lust rose inside her. She took every ounce of hate and grief, anger and resentment and she pushed it through her blood and into the ground, forcing it along the black lines of magic to her army. Even the longest dead- those no more than skeletal husks felt the emotion enter them. As one their movements became more coordinated. Languid, almost floating hands became claws, reaching out and tearing into the soft flesh of the merfolk.

  The water became murky with scales and blood. The Maidens' shrieks filled Yau's head even as she heard nothing, and she pushed harder, wielding her weapons, moving with them, pulling chunks of hair from scalp, ripping fins from tails. As the excitement built up in her, the dead became more animated. Dead eyes showed her fear and horror, dried up tongues became plump, and Yau could taste the bitter tang of sea-blood in her mouth.

  A maiden flashed past, a jagged knife slicing through zombie flesh. Yau felt the pain in her body and gave the walking corpse free reign. It lurched forward, gripping the mermaid, bony fingers digging easily into the gelatinous flesh, bursting through veins and sinews. The maiden writhed, fighting back, but the zombie merely opened its rotten maw and sank its teeth into her side, biting and chewing until blood and organs formed a murky cloud around it and the mermaid stopped struggling.

  The merfolk fought back in panicked frenzy, arcing through the water, quick like the silverfish on the spring tide. They ripped bones apart, wrenched skulls from necks and battered them against the seabed rocks, but Yau didn't care, already she had shifted her focus, pulling away from one lost case to attack from another angle. She rested in Amoxtl's mind, watching as the zombies tore the mermaids apart. In her semi-conscious state she could hear the death cries of the maiden's- a high pitched squeal that seemed to make the sands beneath Amoxtl's feet shift. Yau cursed. She was running out of time, the stream of power from her body weakening as the wounds clotted. Leaving her zombie army to wrestle with the fish people, and embedded deep in Amoxtl's mind, she searched for her brother.

  Rocks were little problem to her, she had Amoxtl turn them over, pulling at them even as she fought to rebuild his ripping muscle. Shrimp scuttled around them, nipping at the dead flesh.

  An eel moved out of the coral and wrapped itself around Amoxtl's leg, biting into the sagging flesh. Yau ignored them all. She could see her brother, his face bloated, the skin ripping as he swelled up.

  Up on the cliff, Yau gave a choked sob. She hated to see him this way, to see how the maidens had sacrificed him. She squeezed her palms, and her blood oozed out into the ground. She sent the tendril of magic to her brother, and watched as the facsimile of life bought colour to his face.

  He looked up at her as she stared out of Amoxtl's eyes, and there was no hint of the man she had known, just the remains, waiting for her to control and bury him.

  She called out to him, Amoxtl's mouth opening in a mirror image of her own, and water flooded the orifice. Yau used him to claw at her brother, pulling him from the entrapment, fighting against the current to keep the rocks from crushing him and keeping him from the air.

  The sound of shrieking maidens quietened, the ocean became gradually more silent and Yau gasped.

  In her protective circle she coughed and a jet of sea foa
m splattered onto the grass. She was losing them- the connection fading.

  She reached out for the knife.

  “No, Yau! Stop it!” Nan screamed, fists smashing ineffectually against the magical barrier.

  The God laughed.

  “Yes!” He cried. “Do it!”

  Yau dragged the knife blade up the length of her inner wrist. Blood gushed, soaking the ground. Yau felt the pulse and she screamed as her mind careened down the lines, calling out to the dead. The floating corpses of the maidens began to twitch; the fallen bodies of humans once more began to move. Yau spread her mind around all of them, bringing them to one place, ripping into the last of the maidens. She felt every cut and blow inflicted on her army, but she cared nothing for them. She plunged a fist out, grabbing a handful of slimy, matted hair. The mermaid screamed; the sound deafening, but Yau let her host pull it closer, sinking its teeth into the soft flesh, ripping a chunk out of the throat. The scream died, the maiden convulsed, clawing at the zombies face and still Yau let it tear the mermaid apart, until there was only a torn up skeleton left- and when it was truly dead, Yau pushed her essence into the body and bought it back, sending the corpse back into the fight to rip her sister's limb from limb.

  Those maidens that still lived stopped fighting for Tepil's corpse and instead began fighting to get away. As they fled, Yau's shout of triumph echoed around the cliff's, and as the dead pulled the rocked away from Tepil, she turned from the sea to stare at Nan.

  “He's free,” she told the weeping woman, grinning. “And he will be buried and he will rest in peace.”

  “At what cost,” Nan whispered, hugging herself. “Look at what you've done!”

  Yau didn't answer, she glanced at the God, who stood tall and proud, watching as the dead emerged from the water, traipsing across the sand.

  “You are a worthy queen,” he murmured, “and the line will only get stronger through the generations.”

  Yau turned to stare at her army, lurching and hobbling back up to the village. The people stood there, making signs against them, weeping when they saw someone they recognised, and Yau continued to stand there, blood dripping down her arm, soaking into her clothing.