Thy Wretched Mask

I fall from the tree and Valeri perches on my shoulder. The sun is setting; dusk would arrive soon, so might as well make my way to Emul’s Bog.

Wind creeps through the stagnant mists of the marshland. Mud clings to my cloth‍-​wrapped feet. I see salamanders and frogs wriggling in pools of dark water. Sunset shadows turn the old trees that surround me into long forms that seek across the grounds.

I see a glimmer of eyeshine, a large form moving in the distance.

I wonder if I shouldn’t have waited to dark to make this journey. If I shouldn’t have made the journey at all. Who is Utamara, and why should I care?

But really Emul’s Fall wouldn’t be much kinder to me than the wild, so onward I go.

The ground suddenly gives way beneath me, and I cry out. Valeri flaps, fluttering away (traitor!), as the earth drags me down into a pit.

I grab onto a fallen branch and dig into the ground. At length, with great exertion, I pull myself out of the muddy pit. Valeri stands on grassy ground and watches me, but the bird doesn’t have the strength to be any help, really.

Then I hear it, a footsteps in the distance, and I freeze.

I’d seen it earlier, some great beast prowling in the wilds, and I feel it surveying. Nearer now, thanks to my cry.

Okay. I’m a little bit fucked. But I’m not going to be less fucked if I turn around. I have to avoid whatever the hell that is, either way. Just have to be sneaky about it. I can do sneaky.

I creep forward in the marsh, climb from the boughs of trees, slithering through the squat bushes. I hear a splash and go still for a moment before daring forward. There’s a long, wide creek again, the water completely stagnant. An oxbow? An oddly shaped pond?

If I’m going to keep heading north, I’ll need to cross it. But in the darkness and griminess of the water, there’s no telling how deep it is. There’s no telling what’s in it.

It’s too long and wide to go around. But… I might be able to find a good log to float across on, paddling myself with fallen branches.

“Sound like a good plan, Val?”

She rattles, ever the voice of dissent.

“Right, you should fly me across, then.”

She pecks me.

Anyway, let’s find that log.

I’m a lucky girl. I find a rotting log that’s not so far gone it falls apart to the touch. It’s no boat, but I trust myself to balance on it. I drag it to the edge of the creek, and set it to float. I find a big, thick stick to paddle with. If I’m lucky, the waters are shallow enough I won’t be paddling, I’ll be pushing against the bottom of the pool.

It goes well for about half the length of the creek. There I am drifting, stick pushing against the bottom. The bed is muddy enough it does give much resistance, and I can feel it getting deeper. By now, I’m far enough away even a strong leap wouldn’t carry me to either shore.

Then the bottom drops off suddenly. I put forward in the swing of the stick expecting something down there to resist me, but it’s a watery void now. I go off balance, and fall into the water.

I’m a flailing bundle of limbs, I’m yelling and my mouth fills with putrid water. In that chaos, I throw an arm around my log and hug against it like it’s a lifeline.

The bark and sticks scrape against my flesh. My muddy underclothes tear further. I’m gonna get horribly infected, I already know.

But a new fear grips me. Is there something in this pond?

I feel a current, newly‍-​stirring water brushing past my feet. I push down on my log as I struggle to climb back on top of it, and I paddle with my hand (stick fell, unrecoverable), desperate to get to shore unmolested.

It’s not to be. I feel wicked teeth bite, gnawing my foot as I pull it up. It’s a miracle I stay mostly above water, even as I reel in this evil fish thing.

I punch it, again and again to make it let go of my foot.

I growl in primal frustration. The fish isn’t exactly going to do more damage at this point, but I’m in the woods, it’s night, and nothing is fucking going my way. I have a damn knife in my pocket and yet I’m punching this thing like a brute.

I grab my knife and stab the bitch in what I hope is an eye. Something soft and squishy at any rate.

That doesn’t kill it‍ ‍—‍ how the hell doesn’t that kill it‍ ‍—‍ but it’s convinced to leave me alone, and it lets go of my leg to go lick it’s eye‍-​wound or whatever.

God, this is pathetic.

“If I die,” I tell Valeri, “Please have a good feast of my corpse, alright? Least I’ll be good for something, then.”

The bird pecks me hard enough I wonder if I’m bleeding somewhere new.

“No,” she imitates.

“You’re gonna let me rot out of spite?”

She just pecks me again.

Above me, the raven turns around and flaps, talons gripping my hair. Her wings push us toward the other side, because I’ve lost the will to even paddle.

I flop off the log onto the muddy shore. I don’t have it in me to get up, but Valeri sidles up to me and rubs against my cheek, crowing softly.

I guess I gotta get up. Utamara said I’d know it when I see it or something, right? Can’t be far now. Can’t be. Or.

In a way, it doesn’t feel like I even left the creek. There’s more puddles all around me, though none quite as big. Trees don’t crop up anymore, it’s just lilypads and bushes rising out of the water. I feel like I’m wading, but there’s raised, dry land up ahead.

I stop when I feel like I’m being watched again. I turn around, and there it is. The glowing eyes that I saw at the beginning, the thing that’s been hunting me all along.

I can sense it’s preparing to charge at me.

“Val? I think we only get one shot at this.”

Here’s the plan. It’s not my best plan, but it’s what I have to work with. I try to sneak away, while Valeri flies in a loop around the beast, making assorted animal sounds and trying to confuse the thing.

This close, I’m able to get a better sense of its form‍ ‍—‍ like an elk or moose, if they had row upon row of sharp teeth and four glowing eyes. At see impressions of at least three pairs of horns.

They become clear when the head turns to track my bird companion.

Here’s where things go wrong. Or rather, they go terribly right: the thing is distracted by the calls‍ ‍—‍ so it rushes after Valeri. It’s fast. Faster than my bird can fly.

Maybe, I could have tried to escape with this distraction. But what would be the point if I lost Valeri? I rush over, bounding to guard her with my body as a shield.

I have my knife in hand and I’m weakly swinging at the head of the moose thing, scooping up Valeri with my other hand. The thing cries out and somehow, I don’t get immediately maimed, but my heart is beating fast enough it might explode and I’d do my own self in. The thought of losing Valeri‍ ‍—‍ anything but that.

So I fucking book it over the bit of rising ground, raven cradled in my arms.

As I bound northward, my eyes are scanning the horizon ahead for any sense of what I’m looking for. The good news is that I think I see “it”. Now, I can’t say for sure that the glowing lights ahead, like a campfire made of will o’ wisps, is what Utamara wanted me to look for, but if it isn’t I think I’ll just die.

The bad news is that… It’s a straight shot there. A plain that’s (thankfully), more mud than water. I’d feel fine about briskly walking the distance and meeting this enigma of ‘Utamara’.

Except… should I be worried about the dozen corpses sunken and preserved in the bog between here and there? Don’t think I have any reason to think my pathetic ass is going to avoid whatever killed this many people.

I creep forward, careful where I place my feet, and squint to examine the nearest body in the dark, searching for some indication of cause of death. If remote autosy is a skill, it’s definitely not one I’ve got, but I make do.

So, cataloging everything I see… I come to a conclusion.

I might just be fine? There’s one thing I can see in common for all this corpses. Clothes, appearance, physiology, none of this can be made out in the darkness. But I notice something about the distribution: none of the corpses are alone. Some of the dead people are lying on top of others, holding hands. One women (bearing generous assets) has four men dead holding pieces of her.

Maybe it’s just hopeful thinking. But given that I’m here alone…

“Hey Valeri? Fly toward the light.”

She gives a caw and is gone, enough dark figure disappearing in the dark. Anyway.

Given that I’m here alone, either I’m fine, or I’ll be the first one to die alone. I like those odds. Okay, I don’t like those odds at all, it’s a stupid theory, but it’s something and I like the thought better now than the complete mystery.

I push forward. And then it begins.

Voices are speaking.

You see, I actually devised two theories, when I noticed the grouping of corpses. Either this field only kills those who travel in groups…

Or the corpses kill you. I’m keeping my best distance from them (Do they emit poisonous gas? Do parasites crawl out and get you?)

But the point is, I was sure this unmoving, sunken forms were corpses.

Except now, they’re speaking.

“Please, help me…”

“I’m sunken in, I just need you to pull me out.”

“Do you have any water? Please.”

“You’ll sink too. You can’t make it alone.”

“Save me!”

“I’ll do anything, just get me out!”

Is it a trap? Am being a bastard by just walking forward, not even thinking to spare a hand?

(If one of them was Valeri, wouldn’t I do anything to save her?)

People go missing in Emul’s fall, sometimes. What if this is just the opposite of survivorship bias‍ ‍—‍ I only see the people who haven’t been saved yet, and my kindness really could make the diff—

Over there that’s a skeleton.

Just keep walking. So I’m a bastard. Oh well. I didn’t get this far thinking anything else. I can sleep at night, knowing that. It doesn’t bother me. It really doesn’t.

I close my eyes, tune out the crying and the begging, and watch my eyelids get redder as I approach the light of the will o’ wisps.

Walking into an place with light feels like stepping into another world. The air twists into distorting shapes and glows with etheral blue lights, like an aurora of the wild itself.

I’m alone here, no sign of the ‘Utamara’ I was suppposed to meet.

I wait, eyes peering beyond the trees trying to see if I can spot anyone approaching.

I can spot something, already. Four eyes, antlers, taller than I am? The beast has found me once more, and I don’t think there’s any fight left in me.

But as it approaches the clearing, as it passes from shadow into the light, as it slips by a tree, it goes from beast to a human.

They’re naked, with skin scar‍-​lined and varigated, ten tones as if their flesh had been sown together. What skin I can’t see is obscured by a fur pelt. Dark, symbolic markings trace stark patterns. They have a man’s length flacid between the legs, but a pair of breasts shift with the rising and fall of their chest. They look winded.

They still have the four eyes, reflecting light and blinking independent. Still have antlers rising out of their hair.

“Beca and Valeri. So kind of you to join us at last.”

“What the fuck? So that was you all along?”

“Haven’t you realized this was a test? Fortunate you didn’t die.”

“Fortunate?”

“I’d hate to go to the trouble of seeking out a new candidate, after all.”

“You nearly killed Valeri!”

“And you nearly failed the test. I worried that act of heroism”‍ ‍—‍ she poke the word like a slur‍ ‍—‍ “was a sign you wouldn’t be up to the task after all. But your true colors shined through, in the end.”

“The end? The field of corpses?”

“The last test. So many find pity in their heart, mercy, or innumerable other foolish species of weakness. It overpowers their senses, and they try to save those already dead, dooming themselves in the process.”

“This is all pretty fucked up.”

They seem to preen at that. “Thank you.”

“So what bullshit did you call me all the way out in this godforsaken bog for?”

“To the point, hm? Oh, this is nothing big. I’d like Basira Elkfield dead. You’re going to help with that.”

“I’m not exactly an assassin.”

“And Emul’s Fall is not exactly the summit of subterfuge. You’ll do, and you’re far more cut out for the work than any other I’ve seen. You don’t have a heart, do you? Not truly.”

“So that’s it? You want me to kill the richest merchant—”

“And grab his dragon heartscale, of course”

“And steal what is no doubt his most valuable possession. No other details? No parameters?”

“No, I think you’re a clever killer. You’ll figure the rest out. When the deed is done, return to this marsh. If you’d like an incentive, I can promise you this: your hunger will be sated at last. Well and truly.”

I sigh. Not like I have anything better to do, really.

“Oh, I do have a parting gift, before you go.”

In a blink, Utamara is upon me. They lean in, pressing clawed nails to my muddy back and scratching. I know they draw blood. Their voice is breath in my ears, speaking in another language, of bonds and oaths. She bites my neck, and sketches a glyph with the blood that draws. “Until I free you or you free yourself, this wound will not heal.”

She takes a step back, giving me much welcome space.

“One last thing: beware the astral rot. I’d hate to cede them another pawn.”

Utamara slips away like a shadow. Beyond the line of trees, between one shadow and the next she is the beast once again, and then this is a shadow in the night.

The wisp‍-​fire is still burning. Certainly beats the biting chill of squatting in a house in Emul’s Fall. My eyes droop.

Yeah, I think I’ll rest here.