Michael Foster - She Who Has No Name

Turning one corner, Samuel found himself in a long corridor that must have run along the centre of the ship. It was a strange passage, for it had no doors or branches along its length, and was marked only at the end by a single,closed door. There were no portholes to grant him light and he judged that he must be well beneath the water level, somewhere between the cargo holds and ballast spaces at the very bottom of the craft. Any further down and he guessed he would be stepping over the giant curved ribs that gave such vessels their strength-assuming, of course, that this ship had been built similarly to the Imperial designs he was familiar with.

Unlike those Imperial ships, however, this vessel barely moved with the waves that harassed it outside,splashing and bubbling far above. It sat in the water as steady as a rock, perhaps due to some fact of its design, or perhaps merely because of its massive size. Despite this, he felt unsteady and had to reach out to the wall for support. At first, he thought it was just his eyes playing tricks on him, but then he realised there was something wrong with the ship or his senses. The passageway seemed to be pulsing and the sensation grew by the moment,contorting and twisting like a swallowing gullet, as if trying to draw him down towards the far door.

He tried to shake the vision from his eyes, but it would not be banished. Samuel could only hold up his lantern and take leaden steps along the passage. The thought of turning and fleeing threatened to overwhelm him, but somehow he kept on going; one step at a time along the churning corridor until,finally, he found himself standing just before the door at its end, sweating and trembling.

The air seemed to be humming like wasps around his ears and he felt, as he slowly reached his quivering hand out towards the latch,that at any moment the portal would burst open and devour him. Somehow, despite the fact his magician’s senses told him nothing was there, he was convinced that sitting on the other side of the door was something terrible and massive, like a lurking creature from one of his nightmares, guarding its precious hoard. The desire to scream and run away almost overcame him, but he dared not turn his back to the door lest something should creep out after him. He could not remember experiencing such fear in his life and it had him shaking and trembling,as if with a fever,and the lantern was rattling wildly in his hand-he had to keep his fist clutched as tight as he could to keep it from leaping free. His blood was roaring in his ears and his heart sounded like a booming drum.

Then, as his finger finally met the icy brass latch, the strangeness ceased and all was again still and quiet. The tension and dread that had saturated the air fell away and Samuel found himself looking all around with bewilderment. There he was, standing at the end of a perfectly normal passage, although cold and wet with sweat. He felt foolish, hardly able to imagine what had caused his fear, for there was no hint as to anything that could haveelicitedsuch feelings. Still, he looked behind him, hoping someone else would appear at the end of the corridor to lend him their company.

After a few momentsoflistening intently for footsteps, Samuel realised no one else was coming, and so he resolutely returned his attention to the door. He lifted the latch-for it seemed the door had been sealed from the outside-and pushed the portal all the way in.It issuing a great creaking groan as it swung in on its great forged hinges.

The room within was filled with a darkness that his lantern seemed hesitant to penetrate. He stepped in, holding his light source forth and peering into the void. He waved his hand to and fro, trying to burn away the dark, but his eyes were taking their good time to make out the details within. The sour smell of mould and mildew crawled its way up into his nostrils as he blinked and peered into the darkness.

He almost jumped out of his skin when he saw that there was something squatting directly in front of him, only three arms’ lengths away, as if it had been waiting for him to arrive. It was a great bulking thing and,if Samuel had not been frozen to the spot,he would have dropped his lantern and run back out the door as fast as he could. It took a moment before he could gather himself, for the thing did not leap or roar or do any of the things his primitive fears had first assumed it might do. In fact, it took him quite a while to realise that he was actually looking at something more like a mound of furs-an inanimate bundle-rather than some beast crouched on its haunches.

He had almost dismissed the pile altogether, when something glinted in the light and again he took a sudden breath. There, amongst the dark fur and shadow of the heap, were two eyes looking back at him. Bravely, he raised his lantern towards it and the light fell upon a patch amongst the fur that had been painted and coloured with swirling patterns of brown and red. Indeed, almosthidden amongst the patterns was a set of eyes and the thing started blinking at the brightness of his lamp.

A hole opened below the eyes and Samuel realised the thing was now gape-mouthed, givingita look of surprise to match his own. Astonishingly, as he looked closer at the mound and began to come to terms with what he was beholding, he realised it was some kind of person that faced him, a personsitting in an enormous chair and draped in layers ofreekingfurs and cloths. The occupant of the chair was blinking and moving its head,as if examining him in return, but it was difficult to believe that this was a human he was observing. Unlike every other living thing he had ever seen, this one had absolutely no aura of life around it. He barely knew what to think of it. No matter how much he concentrated his magician’s sight upon the thing, there was no energy at all to suggest that this was, in fact, a living entity of any description.

He was about to say something to voice his puzzlement when the thing he was staring at beat him to it and spoke in a whisper that cut the silence of the ominous chamber.

‘What are you?’ it asked of Samuel, its voice a mix of fear and curiosity.

There were two surprises for Samuel in this: first, the voice was that of a young woman. Why she was sitting alone in this dark chamber, dressed in this way was unfathomable, but that was not the end of it. The second andevengreater surprise was that she spoke in perfect Old Tongue-the language of magicians. It was a language lost to common folk inages long past. For a woman to speak this, now and in such a setting, was astonishing, to say the least. Every attempt his mind made to grasp hold of the situation only seemed to confound him further.

Samuel hesitated, not sure if or how to answer, and the woman raised herself and took a step forwards. Most of her bulk slid away from her shoulders and Samuel realised that a good portion of her many-layered gown had been draped over the arms and back of the high-backed chair, exaggerating the size of them both. It could once have been a decorative dress or cloak meant for the cold, but the fur was so old and matted that now it looked horrendous-as if some diseased creature had died across her shoulders and sloughedits skindown upon her. She raised her arm and pointed to Samuel’s face with a long, black, painted fingernail.

‘Why have you come here?’ she demanded. Any hint of softness from that first whisper was gone and she now spoke with a voice that crackled as if she was a hundred years old. ‘Begone!’ The patterns drawn on her face contorted and exaggerated her features, seemingly designed to make her appear fierce and ghoulish.

‘I am Lord Samuel,’ he responded in Turian, for it seemed a sacrilege to communicate with a woman in the hallowed language of magicians. ‘Why do you speak in the Old Tongue? How do you know this?’