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Description

Next Chapter: Leviathan Mordeo, Virgo's Flute

Previous Chapter: We who weep for our fallen foe

Beginning Chapter: A saint's appetite

  The star charts are the maps we use to track the movements of a Leviathan. Yet, this is a poor comparison, for these are not pieces of parchment, but flesh. They squeal like pigs and bleed when cut. What kind of chart does that? I can see blood vessels pulsing beneath the pages and feel the void emanating from moist parchment. God help me, I hear the voices too and they tell me where to cut. Bloody scabs are my guide and the scars my bookmarks. Then, I made a mistake, a terrible sin. I folded the damn thing, and its screams haunt me to this day.

Star Charts



“Can you tell me where the Leviathan is going?” Ilene asked, unrolling a star chart before him.

  Felix flattened the paper, which felt like a wet towel, and anchored the corners with stones. He pressed his fingers towards the center, beta, gamma, delta, eta, epsilon, and zeta. All the stars of Ursa Minor were accounted for and, there, making up the claw, was Leviathan Sitis. He’d been reading the star charts for several days now. The scrolls, at first, were confusing with bright flashing lights and canvas that felt like a frog’s skin. These were not the pages of some dusty manuscript or the bent leaflet of a forgotten planner. No, these chapters were alive, and the painted stars twinkled and paper sweat, but it was a cold sweat. Felix could feel the void sitting so close, leaking from the page like a rusty pipe. His hands shook, and he could see his breath and feel the moisture freeze to the inside of his nose.

  He learned early on the difference between a natural star and a Leviathan. The truth was in the color and the way the light shined. Real stars twinkled on the page, but a Leviathan swayed like a sheet in the wind. Indeed, Sitis’s light wavered, a sun on the surface of the ocean. He could see it on the chart like magic dancing before his eyes. Still, the Leviathan’s movements were a mystery to him.

  “How can I tell where it is going to be?” Felix asked.

  “You’re a resonant, Felix. We listen more than we see. Try closing your eyes,” Ilene said, touching his hand.

  He did as she asked, closing his eyes, and opening his ears. The walls of the Astralarium made it easy to pick out the distant howls of his Leviathan. There was a time when the Devourer’s music was like nails on a chalkboard, but now he longed for its call; that undulating pitch of a lonely whale traveling in the empty darkness.

  The sound came to him now, and he drifted away on an unspeakable current. The howl was so close he could feel the heat of its breath on the back of his neck. He truly resonated with its voice, the melody bouncing around inside his head and hissing like a whistle from every pore, tooth, and nail. The vibrations caused his heart to skip and tickled the root of his spine as he sweat. Then his fingers started tapping as the sound caused micro-fractions in the bone, bending his thumb to touch his wrist.

  “That’s enough!” Ilene’s voice broke through and Sitis retreated once more into the background.

  As Felix opened his eyes, he found his finger had moved on the star chart from the claw to the spine of Ursa Minor like a planchette across a Ouija board.

  “You did well,” Ilene said.

  She took his hand away and drew a line on the paper with a scalpel. A clean-cut that caused the chart to bleed and scab over in the direction of the bear’s spine.

  “Brother Insley.” Ilene waved her hand, and another scholar came from the shadows, bowing slightly. “Tell father Itrit that Sitis is moving toward the Stag. Have him adjust Juno’s orbit by thirty degrees,” Ilene said, never looking up from the page.

  The man bowed once more, falling back into the shadows.

  “Juno?” Felix asked.

  “Yes, one of the six gas giants caught in Sol’s orbit. Juno, Bacchus, Demeter, Fortuna, Janus, and Vesta. There’s one for each of the great Leviathans, and we influence their orbit to blind the beasts.”

  “We control the planets?”

  “Are you surprised, given what you’ve already seen?” Ilene shook her head. “We don’t have that much control, Felix. The sundial allows us to shift the rotation and orbit of only a few and not our own. Such is the gift of the white god.”

  “But, how?”

  “I promise to tell you everything I know about the sundial tomorrow, but now I want you to focus on the scrolls.” Ilene unrolled another chart in front of him. “Tell me what you see?”

  This one differed from the first. It felt coarse and leathery, like a dry lizard’s skin, and the illustrations on the page didn’t pop out. Felix recognized the pattern on the chart, but the stars didn’t twinkle, and he couldn’t see the waving light of a Leviathan. This scroll depicted Gemini. He picked out the blots of ink meant to represent the stars, Pollux and Castor. Still, the scroll was dead and may as well have been a standard leaflet.

  “This is the constellation Gemini, Ilene. I can’t resonate with this Leviathan. I can’t hear Vescor,” Felix said.

  “That’s correct.” She clapped her hands together. “I’m glad to see our lessons are sinking in. Indeed, only one who has resonated with a specific Leviathan can read the corresponding star chart.”

  “Who’s bound to this one?” Felix asked.

  “You just met him. Brother Insley is tuned to Vescor.”

  “And you are Vorax and Inedia?”

  “Right again. Brother pilus and I share Vorax while I alone hear Inedia.” Ilene said.

  Felix nodded as his knuckles shook, clicking together and knocking the ice that formed at his fingertips. Though Vescor didn’t call out to him, he could feel the void all the same.

  “Come,” Ilene said, taking his hand. “That’s enough for today.”

  A scholar wasn’t allowed to read the charts for longer than an hour. Even for them, such activity was dangerous. That was the first rule he learned as a member of the sunken valley. The second was a much harsher lesson. Never fold the star charts.

  Felix made that mistake on his first day in the crucible. He folded one neatly, right down the center, putting a crease in the aorta and cutting off the blood supply. The chart leaped from the table, squealing like a stuck pig, knocking over a stack of books and Ilene right from under her feet. He couldn’t forget the sound of that trembling page, like a howling dog, but much worse. The noise gave him goosebumps and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Then the corners wilted, and the scroll turned as black as charcoal, going silent.

  “That’s why you don’t fold the charts,” Ilene sighed, gathering herself up from the floor.

  Then he glimpsed a pulsing slit on the lower side of her neck, the start of a line of gills running down her back. She was always quick to cover herself, always quick to hide behind the scholar’s mantle. That bubbling scar on Ilene’s cheek was the only part of herself she was comfortable with; the only shred of humanity left, and she clung to it like driftwood in the open sea. But there was no fooling him.

  Ilene had an appetite.

  Felix heard her stomach growl when she taught him how to make a new star chart. A resonant’s flesh was the key, and Ilene told him how best to cut ribbons from the thigh.

  “Use a sharp blade,” she said, handing him a scalpel. “That way, the cut is clean, and you don’t need to go too deep. We only need a piece. The rest will grow to fit the shape of the mold.” Ilene then handed him a bandage. “Press tightly for thirty seconds, and the bleeding will stop. Our kind clots quickly.”

  She never stayed to watch him cut, instead choosing to step out as he sharpened the blade. Ilene didn’t go far. She waited just outside the door, panting like a dog. She had developed a taste for the darker meat just above the ankle. That softer, succulent patch of skin was often overdeveloped and full of muscle and blood vessels. Felix didn’t quite get her taste even as he cut a strip of flesh from his leg and hung it like laundry from the ceiling. The meat was too greasy, and there wasn’t enough of a crunch. He preferred tendons and bones. Oh, how he drooled at the sound of snapping ligaments and torn muscles. Felix had ruined his wrists twice already.

  Unlike Ilene, his teeth never stopped growing. The thin film that gave his incisors a razor edge just kept expanding until the needles dug into his gums and prevented him from closing his mouth. Malocclusion, that’s what they called his condition. A few of the other scholars suffered from it as well. They gave him a sanding stone, and every night he gnawed on that rock to grind down his teeth—a minor nuisance.

  “Are you finished?” Ilene asked from outside his room.

  “Yes.” Felix had hung the strip of flesh to dry out like patches of leather.

  “Then lay the piece down in the mold as I taught you.”

  He carefully took the soft ribbon, which now felt like a snake’s skin, and laid it in a page-shaped mold filled with a milky substance. The patch of flesh floated on the surface, and he closed the cast iron top of the mold, pressing tight.

  “It’s done,” Felix said.

  Ilene stepped back into the room as he wiped the scalpel clean. He could hear her heart beating like a drum, and she was sweating at the neck, her nostrils flaring and fingers twitching.

  “Even the smell sets you off, huh?” Felix asked.

  “I’ve been through worse. You will too when we teach you to go weeks without a bite.” Ilene hid her wrists beneath her robe.

  “Why the fasting, Ilene?”

  “Because eventually, your wrists will no longer suffice,” she said, sealing the mold in place with an iron pin. “Ask me about your predecessor. Ask me about the man who last resonated with Sitis. He never learned to control his urges and eventually developed a taste for children. I took his head myself and gave the rest to the inquisition.”

  “So that’s why you need me? You killed the last resonant of the bear?” Felix asked.

  “Yes, you’re now the only scholar who can hear the Leviathan of Ursa Minor. However, don’t think for a minute I won’t cut off your limbs and tie you in a cellar if you turn your eyes on me again.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, surprised by her vicious tone.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at my wrists.” She pulled her cloak over her arm and brought her right hand just under his nose. “Go on,” she said with daggers in her eyes. “Take a bite.”

  Felix hesitated. He could smell the salt of her skin like the ocean’s spray, with a hint of a red rose. Then, with a shaking hand, he touched the back of her fingers and traced the lines on her palm soft like a flank steak and marbled red. Soon, spittle ran down the corners of his mouth, and his tongue whipped the sides of his cheeks violently.

  Just one bite, he thought to himself, lips quivering and nose flaring. He stopped just short of sinking his teeth into her hand. There was something in the way she moved, the way her skin turned icy cold and clammy. He could see shadows sticking out just over her shoulder, a spine, a tooth, a rigid blade. Ilene didn’t blink, and her eyes turned pale yellow with slits like a cat. Felix pushed her hand away, remembering something he had forgotten weeks prior.

  This woman was dangerous.

  “Smart choice,” Ilene said, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling him so close his nose was inches away from her shoulder. “This is how I’m going to teach you.” She ran her tongue, more than twice an arm’s length, across his cheek. “You and I in each other’s arms for a month.”

  Felix tried to pull away, but the more he struggled, the deeper her nails sunk. Then, a row of serrated spines rolled out from the slits in her forearms and wrapped around his waist, threatening to disembowel him if he pushed harder.

  “Is dinner ready yet?” she whispered with a laugh.

  He could smell the scent of a plump roast, and his eyes watered from the stinging spices. Felix licked the base of her neck just under the gill, and it tasted sweet and savory like honey and salted ham. That’s when his left thumb twitched violently, and his teeth clicked together.

  “Go on,” she said. “The second bite is as easy as the first.”

  With the feel of a maple-glazed skin, the scent of a freshly baked pie, and the intoxicating sound of her voice, Felix couldn’t take it anymore. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth wide.

  Just one bite.

  Ilene moved so fast he hadn’t time to finish the thought before she tore out one of his front teeth. The pain was lightning quick and had him doubled over as she let go of his back, and he hit the floor with a thud. Blood poured out of his mouth as Felix rolled from left to right, screaming. She looked at the tooth for a time, analyzing the root’s curve and the shape of the crown, before tossing it like trash.

  “This is what it’s going to be like, Felix,” she said, kneeling on top of his chest and pinning his arms to the floorboard. “An entire month, just you and me. Every time you get the itch, every time you go to take a bite, I will tear out another”—she pounded the floor— “another and another and another. I will do this until that taste, that honey-sweet flavor, fills you with nothing but dread.”

  Finally, she stepped off him as he convulsed, another tooth breaking through the wound like a knife through butter.

  “I will train you to control that appetite of yours. I hope you’re looking forward to it,” Ilene said, stepping towards the door. “By the way, that mold will take two hours to set properly. Don’t take your eyes off it.”

  Felix found his feet rubbing his jaw, which was turning black and blue.

  “I, I won’t,” he stammered, his hands shaking and fingers twitching.

  “Oh, and Felix?” she looked over her shoulder as she stepped out into the hall. “If you ever fold a chart like that again, I will do so much more than just take your teeth.”

Description

Next Chapter: Leviathan Mordeo, Virgo's Flute

Previous Chapter: We who weep for our fallen foe

Beginning Chapter: A saint's appetite

  The star charts are the maps we use to track the movements of a Leviathan. Yet, this is a poor comparison, for these are not pieces of parchment, but flesh. They squeal like pigs and bleed when cut. What kind of chart does that? I can see blood vessels pulsing beneath the pages and feel the void emanating from moist parchment. God help me, I hear the voices too and they tell me where to cut. Bloody scabs are my guide and the scars my bookmarks. Then, I made a mistake, a terrible sin. I folded the damn thing, and its screams haunt me to this day.

Star Charts



“Can you tell me where the Leviathan is going?” Ilene asked, unrolling a star chart before him.

  Felix flattened the paper, which felt like a wet towel, and anchored the corners with stones. He pressed his fingers towards the center, beta, gamma, delta, eta, epsilon, and zeta. All the stars of Ursa Minor were accounted for and, there, making up the claw, was Leviathan Sitis. He’d been reading the star charts for several days now. The scrolls, at first, were confusing with bright flashing lights and canvas that felt like a frog’s skin. These were not the pages of some dusty manuscript or the bent leaflet of a forgotten planner. No, these chapters were alive, and the painted stars twinkled and paper sweat, but it was a cold sweat. Felix could feel the void sitting so close, leaking from the page like a rusty pipe. His hands shook, and he could see his breath and feel the moisture freeze to the inside of his nose.

  He learned early on the difference between a natural star and a Leviathan. The truth was in the color and the way the light shined. Real stars twinkled on the page, but a Leviathan swayed like a sheet in the wind. Indeed, Sitis’s light wavered, a sun on the surface of the ocean. He could see it on the chart like magic dancing before his eyes. Still, the Leviathan’s movements were a mystery to him.

  “How can I tell where it is going to be?” Felix asked.

  “You’re a resonant, Felix. We listen more than we see. Try closing your eyes,” Ilene said, touching his hand.

  He did as she asked, closing his eyes, and opening his ears. The walls of the Astralarium made it easy to pick out the distant howls of his Leviathan. There was a time when the Devourer’s music was like nails on a chalkboard, but now he longed for its call; that undulating pitch of a lonely whale traveling in the empty darkness.

  The sound came to him now, and he drifted away on an unspeakable current. The howl was so close he could feel the heat of its breath on the back of his neck. He truly resonated with its voice, the melody bouncing around inside his head and hissing like a whistle from every pore, tooth, and nail. The vibrations caused his heart to skip and tickled the root of his spine as he sweat. Then his fingers started tapping as the sound caused micro-fractions in the bone, bending his thumb to touch his wrist.

  “That’s enough!” Ilene’s voice broke through and Sitis retreated once more into the background.

  As Felix opened his eyes, he found his finger had moved on the star chart from the claw to the spine of Ursa Minor like a planchette across a Ouija board.

  “You did well,” Ilene said.

  She took his hand away and drew a line on the paper with a scalpel. A clean-cut that caused the chart to bleed and scab over in the direction of the bear’s spine.

  “Brother Insley.” Ilene waved her hand, and another scholar came from the shadows, bowing slightly. “Tell father Itrit that Sitis is moving toward the Stag. Have him adjust Juno’s orbit by thirty degrees,” Ilene said, never looking up from the page.

  The man bowed once more, falling back into the shadows.

  “Juno?” Felix asked.

  “Yes, one of the six gas giants caught in Sol’s orbit. Juno, Bacchus, Demeter, Fortuna, Janus, and Vesta. There’s one for each of the great Leviathans, and we influence their orbit to blind the beasts.”

  “We control the planets?”

  “Are you surprised, given what you’ve already seen?” Ilene shook her head. “We don’t have that much control, Felix. The sundial allows us to shift the rotation and orbit of only a few and not our own. Such is the gift of the white god.”

  “But, how?”

  “I promise to tell you everything I know about the sundial tomorrow, but now I want you to focus on the scrolls.” Ilene unrolled another chart in front of him. “Tell me what you see?”

  This one differed from the first. It felt coarse and leathery, like a dry lizard’s skin, and the illustrations on the page didn’t pop out. Felix recognized the pattern on the chart, but the stars didn’t twinkle, and he couldn’t see the waving light of a Leviathan. This scroll depicted Gemini. He picked out the blots of ink meant to represent the stars, Pollux and Castor. Still, the scroll was dead and may as well have been a standard leaflet.

  “This is the constellation Gemini, Ilene. I can’t resonate with this Leviathan. I can’t hear Vescor,” Felix said.

  “That’s correct.” She clapped her hands together. “I’m glad to see our lessons are sinking in. Indeed, only one who has resonated with a specific Leviathan can read the corresponding star chart.”

  “Who’s bound to this one?” Felix asked.

  “You just met him. Brother Insley is tuned to Vescor.”

  “And you are Vorax and Inedia?”

  “Right again. Brother pilus and I share Vorax while I alone hear Inedia.” Ilene said.

  Felix nodded as his knuckles shook, clicking together and knocking the ice that formed at his fingertips. Though Vescor didn’t call out to him, he could feel the void all the same.

  “Come,” Ilene said, taking his hand. “That’s enough for today.”

  A scholar wasn’t allowed to read the charts for longer than an hour. Even for them, such activity was dangerous. That was the first rule he learned as a member of the sunken valley. The second was a much harsher lesson. Never fold the star charts.

  Felix made that mistake on his first day in the crucible. He folded one neatly, right down the center, putting a crease in the aorta and cutting off the blood supply. The chart leaped from the table, squealing like a stuck pig, knocking over a stack of books and Ilene right from under her feet. He couldn’t forget the sound of that trembling page, like a howling dog, but much worse. The noise gave him goosebumps and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Then the corners wilted, and the scroll turned as black as charcoal, going silent.

  “That’s why you don’t fold the charts,” Ilene sighed, gathering herself up from the floor.

  Then he glimpsed a pulsing slit on the lower side of her neck, the start of a line of gills running down her back. She was always quick to cover herself, always quick to hide behind the scholar’s mantle. That bubbling scar on Ilene’s cheek was the only part of herself she was comfortable with; the only shred of humanity left, and she clung to it like driftwood in the open sea. But there was no fooling him.

  Ilene had an appetite.

  Felix heard her stomach growl when she taught him how to make a new star chart. A resonant’s flesh was the key, and Ilene told him how best to cut ribbons from the thigh.

  “Use a sharp blade,” she said, handing him a scalpel. “That way, the cut is clean, and you don’t need to go too deep. We only need a piece. The rest will grow to fit the shape of the mold.” Ilene then handed him a bandage. “Press tightly for thirty seconds, and the bleeding will stop. Our kind clots quickly.”

  She never stayed to watch him cut, instead choosing to step out as he sharpened the blade. Ilene didn’t go far. She waited just outside the door, panting like a dog. She had developed a taste for the darker meat just above the ankle. That softer, succulent patch of skin was often overdeveloped and full of muscle and blood vessels. Felix didn’t quite get her taste even as he cut a strip of flesh from his leg and hung it like laundry from the ceiling. The meat was too greasy, and there wasn’t enough of a crunch. He preferred tendons and bones. Oh, how he drooled at the sound of snapping ligaments and torn muscles. Felix had ruined his wrists twice already.

  Unlike Ilene, his teeth never stopped growing. The thin film that gave his incisors a razor edge just kept expanding until the needles dug into his gums and prevented him from closing his mouth. Malocclusion, that’s what they called his condition. A few of the other scholars suffered from it as well. They gave him a sanding stone, and every night he gnawed on that rock to grind down his teeth—a minor nuisance.

  “Are you finished?” Ilene asked from outside his room.

  “Yes.” Felix had hung the strip of flesh to dry out like patches of leather.

  “Then lay the piece down in the mold as I taught you.”

  He carefully took the soft ribbon, which now felt like a snake’s skin, and laid it in a page-shaped mold filled with a milky substance. The patch of flesh floated on the surface, and he closed the cast iron top of the mold, pressing tight.

  “It’s done,” Felix said.

  Ilene stepped back into the room as he wiped the scalpel clean. He could hear her heart beating like a drum, and she was sweating at the neck, her nostrils flaring and fingers twitching.

  “Even the smell sets you off, huh?” Felix asked.

  “I’ve been through worse. You will too when we teach you to go weeks without a bite.” Ilene hid her wrists beneath her robe.

  “Why the fasting, Ilene?”

  “Because eventually, your wrists will no longer suffice,” she said, sealing the mold in place with an iron pin. “Ask me about your predecessor. Ask me about the man who last resonated with Sitis. He never learned to control his urges and eventually developed a taste for children. I took his head myself and gave the rest to the inquisition.”

  “So that’s why you need me? You killed the last resonant of the bear?” Felix asked.

  “Yes, you’re now the only scholar who can hear the Leviathan of Ursa Minor. However, don’t think for a minute I won’t cut off your limbs and tie you in a cellar if you turn your eyes on me again.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, surprised by her vicious tone.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at my wrists.” She pulled her cloak over her arm and brought her right hand just under his nose. “Go on,” she said with daggers in her eyes. “Take a bite.”

  Felix hesitated. He could smell the salt of her skin like the ocean’s spray, with a hint of a red rose. Then, with a shaking hand, he touched the back of her fingers and traced the lines on her palm soft like a flank steak and marbled red. Soon, spittle ran down the corners of his mouth, and his tongue whipped the sides of his cheeks violently.

  Just one bite, he thought to himself, lips quivering and nose flaring. He stopped just short of sinking his teeth into her hand. There was something in the way she moved, the way her skin turned icy cold and clammy. He could see shadows sticking out just over her shoulder, a spine, a tooth, a rigid blade. Ilene didn’t blink, and her eyes turned pale yellow with slits like a cat. Felix pushed her hand away, remembering something he had forgotten weeks prior.

  This woman was dangerous.

  “Smart choice,” Ilene said, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling him so close his nose was inches away from her shoulder. “This is how I’m going to teach you.” She ran her tongue, more than twice an arm’s length, across his cheek. “You and I in each other’s arms for a month.”

  Felix tried to pull away, but the more he struggled, the deeper her nails sunk. Then, a row of serrated spines rolled out from the slits in her forearms and wrapped around his waist, threatening to disembowel him if he pushed harder.

  “Is dinner ready yet?” she whispered with a laugh.

  He could smell the scent of a plump roast, and his eyes watered from the stinging spices. Felix licked the base of her neck just under the gill, and it tasted sweet and savory like honey and salted ham. That’s when his left thumb twitched violently, and his teeth clicked together.

  “Go on,” she said. “The second bite is as easy as the first.”

  With the feel of a maple-glazed skin, the scent of a freshly baked pie, and the intoxicating sound of her voice, Felix couldn’t take it anymore. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth wide.

  Just one bite.

  Ilene moved so fast he hadn’t time to finish the thought before she tore out one of his front teeth. The pain was lightning quick and had him doubled over as she let go of his back, and he hit the floor with a thud. Blood poured out of his mouth as Felix rolled from left to right, screaming. She looked at the tooth for a time, analyzing the root’s curve and the shape of the crown, before tossing it like trash.

  “This is what it’s going to be like, Felix,” she said, kneeling on top of his chest and pinning his arms to the floorboard. “An entire month, just you and me. Every time you get the itch, every time you go to take a bite, I will tear out another”—she pounded the floor— “another and another and another. I will do this until that taste, that honey-sweet flavor, fills you with nothing but dread.”

  Finally, she stepped off him as he convulsed, another tooth breaking through the wound like a knife through butter.

  “I will train you to control that appetite of yours. I hope you’re looking forward to it,” Ilene said, stepping towards the door. “By the way, that mold will take two hours to set properly. Don’t take your eyes off it.”

  Felix found his feet rubbing his jaw, which was turning black and blue.

  “I, I won’t,” he stammered, his hands shaking and fingers twitching.

  “Oh, and Felix?” she looked over her shoulder as she stepped out into the hall. “If you ever fold a chart like that again, I will do so much more than just take your teeth.”