James Davis - The Restless Shore

He turned away, unable to look at the pitiful faces or contemplate such a horrid existence. The song had lessened somewhat, and he stood on shaky legs, his sword in a grip so tight he feared his fingers might break.

“Not here,” he whispered under his breath, willing the words to be true. “She’s not here.”

Vaasurri stood close by, his eyes darting between the wailing Flock and the strangely quiet dreamers. The beasts had lowered their heads, sorrowful expressions on their faces as they pawed at the dirt and paced back and forth at the clearing’s edge. Ghaelya edged closer to the crystal forest cautiously, earning threatening growls and toothy snarls from the dreamers, though they did not leave the glittering perimeter of the spires.

Brindani had lowered his sword. His dark eyes still gleamed with some alien presence, a gaze that seemed to switch continuously between the half-elf Uthalion knew and something else that raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Uthalion,” Brindani said, his voice wavering discordantly with strains of the beguiling song as he looked out across the ruins and the reveling Flock. A flash of fear crossed the half-elf’s features, and behind him the dreamers flinched, whining low in their thick throats. “The Choir is coming.”

A distant, monstrous roar echoed through the streets, answered by others from different parts of the city as Uthalion turned, glaring and searching for the monsters amid the bloody, wailing figures-searching for Khault.

12 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Ruins of Tohrepur, Akanul

Muscles rippled and undulated in waves as the gathered masses of the Flock shifted and wailed at the coming of the Choir. Booming voices trumpeted in eerie whale-song echoes. Misshapen limbs grasped and clawed for purchase on the streets, their flesh in flux even as they answered the call of the song. The ground shook at the Choir’s approach, and their sonorous bellows seemed to shake the very air, as if the fabric of reality shuddered to expel such abominations from its firmament.

Brindani staggered, at last released briefly from the will of the song to fall and gasp for air. The singing remained a constant force in his body however, pain and pleasure ripping through him in fine threads of bittersweet melody. Resting on one knee, he endured the scent of the crimson blooms that summoned his unnatural hunger, but as his stomach twisted in agony, he tempered his addiction with the thick taste of blood that flavored each breath in salt and copper. Somewhere between song and addiction he found a balance, a precarious perch upon which to hang his sense of self.

A feminine screech tore through the air, parting the red and white sea of the Flock with thrumming, destructive tones. Almost visible at the end of a steep avenue, a beautiful, angular face rested like a mask upon stretched and pockmarked flesh. Red lips, pierced with barbed, hooklike teeth parted in a deep sigh that rushed through the clearing like an autumn breeze. The Flock swarmed at the thing’s feet, fawning over and caressing the Choir, their singing angels in a temple of ruins.

Brindani gripped his stomach tightly, his heart pounding as he drew back his sword. He was prepared to defend himself to the last even as the powerful song lessened his pain. Sweetly, it whispered wordless charms to him, the tendrils of enchanting melody so strong that he imagined he could even see them, wrapped around him in an inescapable embrace. He trembled as the song touched upon his mind, fearful of again losing his will and giving in to his temptations. But deep in the song’s core, a strangely familiar voice reached him. Gently it pulsed outward, the tendrils sweeping through the ruins, its touch connecting him to those it found.

He gasped in horror as the minds of the Choir brushed against his thoughts, assaulting him with madness. Wants and needs and unimaginable lusts left his skin crawling, though their singular attention was focused just to his left. He glanced to Ghaelya, an unhallowed image flashing through his mind with a stab of fear for the genasi. The song softened in her presence, becoming a low hum of sorrow, unconditional love, and primal terror.

“Khault,” Uthalion muttered as a figure in tattered, dirty robes distinguished itself among the nightmarish horde.

Brindani barely recognized the old farmer, hidden as he was in a twisted body of rippling limbs and warped bones, but the half-elf knew him nonetheless. The song fairly screamed at the sight of the man, filling him with a boundless rage that he fed upon, using it against the pain in his body and holding it tight in the hilt of his sword.

“Captain,” Khault replied in a thunderous voice, shaking the ground as the dreamers whined, pawing at the ground. “You bring to us the twin.”

The grisly host responded savagely, their voices and hands raised to the sky, each note feeding into Brindani’s body through the song. Their exquisite pain ran through him, though it was nothing compared to what he’d done to himself over the years. He endured, but in their chanting exultation, he was shown their shared secret, the source of their reasonless fanaticism and the infection that ruled their bodies. He glimpsed a deep chamber in their minds, adorned with bones, filled with a soft blue glow that glistened like water. A massive blue eye turned sightlessly in the murk as he was torn away from the image and left panting, on his knees before the nightmarish things she had dreamed.

“She,” he whispered.

The creature of the depths, the whisperer of songs and the seductress of drowned sailors. A collector of polished bone, torn from the ocean by the death of a goddess, changed by the blue fire of the Spellplague into a living scourge of dreams. Unbidden tears sprang to Brindani’s eyes as he looked upon the fools that drowned in madness for her now.

It had been a sirine’s song that had called them to Tohrepur, and he’d been as much the fool as any of them.

Uthalion stood strong as the Choir approached. None were so bold as Khault; the rest hid among their Flock, excitedly gibbering to themselves and twitching in the shadows. The singing had faded somewhat, though Uthalion could still sense it as if it were intentionally eddying around him, leaving his mind clear and his old sword at the ready. The captain’s blade gleamed sharply, returned to the place where its first wielder had fallen. It again threatened the flesh of abominations, though there were no proud banners to hang over its singular purpose.

Khault stood at the head of the misshapen congregation, his arms bent at odd angles, and his legs lost in a mass of fleshy tentacles that writhed beneath his robes. Deeply stained bandages covered the scarred place where his eyes had sat, though he seemed no blinder than those who looked upon him with disgust and pity. The others, beyond simple descriptions of race or gender, shambled on limbs that only played at being legs. Eyeless faces rose and fell among them, peering over Khault’s shoulders. They murmured, licking torn lips with doubled tongues and absently picking at deep gouges in their flesh.

Uthalion did not flinch at their appearance or waver beneath their eyeless, horrible gazes. He’d had a thousand nightmares far and beyond more terrible than those of the Choir; he had fought such pathetic beasts before. It was what he’d waited for, what he’d foreseen coming all those nights sitting at the window while Maryna slept alone.

This is my place, he thought sadly, I’ve always been here.

“Where is she?” Ghaelya demanded of Khault. “What have you done?”

The Flock growled and hissed at Khault’s feet, baring sharklike fangs at the genasi. Gasps and sighs filled the tortured throats of the Choir as they pointed and craned their necks to hear the genasi’s voice, tasting the air with their long tongues.