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‘I regret those words,’ she replied
‘You never regret anything’
‘Consider my problems,’ she said ‘I aenerate meat I share your fears, I share your terrors …’
‘This isn’t you,’ Lenk whispered, his voice hot and frantic ‘This isn’t you’
‘And you’ – she ignored him as her hands went to the hem of her shirt, her face split apart with a broad smile – ‘share my meat’
His confusion was lost in her cackle, attention seized by her hands as they pulled her tunic up over her head and tossed it aside, exposing the slender body beneath His eyes blinked wildly of their own volition, and with each flutter of the eyelids, she changed beneath hiaze for three blinks
By the fourth, they blinked back at him
Eels, perhaps? Snakes? He could contemplate their nature for onein silent, gasping shrieks forced between tiny, serrated teeth His own screa of air through the hole that was quickly torn in his throat by their vicelike jaws
His hands were iron, their bodies ater He slapped, clawed, raked at the his desperation He felt blood weep froreasy tears
He collapsed under the assault of their teeth and her shrieking laughter, curling up like a terrified, squealing piglet,the teeth to return at anyon his spine
The agony never ca one’s face torn off and eaten He reached up and touched his face, feeling greasy and sticky skin beneath He looked up
She, or whatever had been posing as her, was gone
Shaking, he pulled hi in His face was red, s lines that raced down his cheeks Long lines, he thought as he noticed his hands, that perfectly lutted with skin
Though it see in philosophical debate with a si bodily assault on a tree, Lenk felt the need to collapse onto his back andit, friend’
‘Understatement’
Lenk blinked at the voice, coldly fa and fiery silence inside his head He fought the urge to smile, to revel in the return of a more intimate madness It didn’t h; the voice sensed it
‘Seems pointless to try to resist’
‘Where were you?’ Lenk asked
‘Alith you’
‘Then you saw … all that?’
‘Knohat you know’
‘Your thoughts?’
‘Our thoughts’
‘You knohat Ithat has happened tonight was real’
‘It seeure?’
‘For one, she’s dead Fact’
‘It’s a distinct possibility’
‘A certainty Listen to reason’
‘Greenhair said she didn’t find any other bodies It’s perfectly sane to believe the others ht be alive’
‘One would be hard-pressed to take advice on sanity from he who hears voices’
‘Point’
‘Referring to your dependence on the that they live?’
‘I … need the the hard times’
‘We have each other’
‘We have nothing but hard tin fro the anyone yet They could still be alive’
‘We could be back in Toha right now if not for the to wreak vengeance upon the next blight that stains the earth They are a hindrance’
‘No, they aren’t’
‘It is them who needs us They wouldn’t survive without us They didn’t survive without us They are useless’
‘No, they aren’t!’
‘We have our duties We have our blights to cleanse The demons fear us, fear e do to them We were created to cleanse the earth of impurities These companions can only be called thus because they were considerate enough to cleanse themselves for us They’re better off dead’
‘No, they aren’t!’
The last echoes of the voice vanished, forced out of his ht He sprang to his feet, began to pace back and forth,to hi Think … it’s hard to think So hot …’ He snarled, thu the hallucinations How do you know?’ He ran a finger at one of his scratches ‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?
‘No,’ he answered hiritted his teeth, the effort of thought see strange things, thoughts that never occurred to you before Why is that odd?
‘Because hallucinations are a product of the orously to hi you don’t know, can you?’ He shook his head violently ‘No, not at all You can’t hallucinate monkeys with philosophical ideas or trees with latent desires for peace, or …
‘Kataria’ He blinked, eyes sizzling with the effort ‘She wasn’t wearing her leathers when you saw her You’ve never seen her without them, have you? No, you haven’t Well, maybe once, but you always think of her in them, don’t you?’ He threw his head back ‘What does all this say to us? Hallucination of things that are not the product of your disease or your mind? Either you’re dead and this is so hell as opposed to the whole "lakes of fire and sodo, or, much more likely …’
‘Someone else is inside your head’
His breath went short at the realisation The world seelanced down at the brook Eyes cloudy with ice stared back A thin, frozen sheet crowned the water As he leaned down to inspect it, it grew harder, whiter, louder