The Truth of Things Unseen

Her Reflection in an Arrow

The ship plunged into the darkness. Rocks swept past in a blur. The rigging sang in the flickering wind. The broken anchor ropes whip-cracked in the dark above.

Taliette’s feet left the deck, and she was falling too, in amongst the ropes and the rigging. The sail bindings pinged loose one by one. She dragged herself down a rope back to the deck and clung to the rail.

Somewhere up above was the Sintarael, falling faster than thought, arms outstretched, red against a shrinking circle of daylight.

The walls were no longer rock, they were broken, jagged things. Pieces of words and worlds fractured and frozen, twisted tight about each other, bound with threads.

"Hey, fancy girl!"

Clinging to the mast was the thing that used to be Jessamy.

Black smoke coiled around it. Fen’s arrow was stuck through the top of the shoulder, down through into the chest. The fletchings brushed against the ear. The neck was locked at an unnatural angle. The right arm spasmed. The dark mist poured from the wound.

A broken, scrabbly twitching, and she began crawling down the mast with splintered fingernails.

“Hello fancy girjjj...”

The voice was a hiss that slid into a bubbling gurgle. Flecks of red spit fell from her slack lips and spiralled up in the wind. She gripped the mast with her legs and leaned out, unrolling, nocking an arrow, drawing her bow.

Taliette jerked her head to one side. Time slowed in the mess of the weave. The arrow drifted past her face. She could almost reach out and touch it. She glimpsed her reflection in the dagger head, scowling, hair wild and high. Then Jessamy was on her, striking at her head, trying to gouge out her eyes, gripping with her knees and pounding.

The torso was stiff around the arrow that still pierced her right through. The fletchings poked at Taliette’s face. Jessamy locked her legs around Taliette’s hips and raked at her face.

"You betrayed ujjjjs." the girl hissed, close and wet, teeth snapping at her ear.

Taliette kicked away from the deck into the air amongst the rigging. A rope lashed out and smacked Jessamy across the head. Jessamy lost her grip and went spinning away.

Taliette nocked an arrow and shot at the falling girl, but the mousehole bent sharply to the right and the arrow disappeared amongst the threads.

The boat began to tumble, the mast swinging out wide. The sail tore away from its bindings and unfurled like a great kite. Ropes cracked. Taliette angled her body away from the tangle of rigging, falling closer to the edge of the hole. Not too close. If she fell into the threads all would be lost.

She twisted around in the no-space, searching for Jessamy in the strobing light of a hundred fractured realities. The girl was falling there too on the opposite side of the mousehole, behind the tumbling ship. Taliette aimed and shot again. From this range, she could not miss. Time dragged once again, and the arrow drifted like a dream. The sail wheeled round and brushed it from the air like autumn bee.

“Shoot her," whispered her heart.

"You don't say!"

She fumbled for another arrow and found only one left in the quiver.

"You thought you would get away," drawled Jessamy, ”but now I’mmmm take you home.”

The girl was falling head down, face-first into the void. Her neck was twisted to the side. She gripped the arrow in her shoulder between her teeth and began worrying it, pulling it loose little by little as the smoke coiled from the hole.

“I’mmmma take you home,” she hummed as she worked. “I’mmmma stick you with arrows and I’mmma feed you to the Mmmmother...”

Her neck snapped straight again as she yanked the arrow out of herself. It dripped with smoke and spit and clear ichor. She clipped it in her bow, aimed at Taliette, then dropped her aim, down, down towards Llan.

"Look out!" Taliette yelled at him. He took notice, jerking his head back just in time. The arrow smacked into the rail right next to him, splashing him with juice.

Taliette pulled her last arrow and drew it while Jessamy was still knocking hers.

"Don't miss," whispered her heart.

“Oh, well, thanks for the advice.”

The girl was below her, across the pit, falling and tumbling, cloak flapping wildly. Taliette took her time, relaxed her fingers and released. The arrow flew true, but the sail swung around again, knocking it tumbling. It span away from her, up and up, forever out of reach.

"No."

Jessamy fumbled for an arrow. She had plenty.

"Look out!" yelled Llandred, and he kicked out towards her, trying to reach her, but a rope lashed him across the face, sending him tumbling end over end.

He grabbed at it, swinging back around the mast towards her. Taliette kicked out towards him, reaching fingertip to fingertip.

Jessamy levelled another arrow. She was close. She could not miss.

The Sintarael crashed down onto the deck. The boards splintered beneath its feet. It crawled towards them like a spider, gripping both rails, snapping the mast like a wishbone as it passed by.

Jessamy tried to turn, but the Sintarael swatted her out of the air. She grabbed a piece of rigging and swung right around the ruined ship, underneath it, flailing and flapping, black smoke trailing behind her, right around until she collided with the armoured head and clung on the back of it, biting and slobbering with teeth that broke and broke again, and still she did not let go as the blood dribbled from her mouth down over the armoured visor, and it snatched her, wrenching her free, and flung her spinning and bleeding into the threads.

And she was gone.

The pit jerked to the right and Llandred tumbled into Taliette’s arms. She gripped him with her arms and her legs, wrapping herself around him, then pushed back against the rail with her toes. They tumbled together, locked together in an embrace as the Sintarael reached for them with long hands, the threads of the world came up to meet her. She glimpsed the narrow grasping fingers snatching at her hair, the swiftness and the sharpness of them.

She wrapped her hair around her fist, bundling it close to her, away from the grasping fingers. She pulled Llandred to her, burying her face in his shoulder, then she hit the wall, the dark threads snagged her.

And the world went blank and still.