‘No! Keep them… Keep them away!’ he said, his gaze flitting from girl to girl as he pleaded for their help. They just looked confused, had no idea what he was talking about. Couldn’t hear what he heard, didn’t have that selfsame feeling of being observed. They just thought he was mad.
But he wasn’t. Grail knew he wasn’t. There was something else in this room with them, a presence.
Then he saw it, an eye opening in the darkness. It was normal-sized, but instead of white it was pink, and the iris was as blue as an ocean. He sucked in a breath, then gasped when another eye opened alongside it. Followed swiftly by another, then another, and still another.
‘N-no, it can’t be!’
Several eyes, all inspecting him, belonging to something huge, lumpen and misshapen that was emerging from that murk, its skin – the colour of a bruise – rippling and undulating.
‘Keep b-back! No!’
Grail averted his eyes, and lunged away, knocking one of the girls out of his path. Only to come face-to-face with what had been making the flapping sound earlier. The wings belonged not to a bird, but something much larger. Much more deadly. They opened up like huge fans, spines running the length of them and downwards at equidistant points, which stretched the leathery material taut. The body of the thing was well-muscled, in a way that would have put even his second-in-command to shame, while its head sported a huge beak. Iridescent blue in colour, the closer this creature drew the more Grail could smell of its foetid breath, drool cascading from its massive maw. He pulled a face, then retched.
‘Don’t let it… Don’t let it get me!’ he managed.
Scrambling away in the opposite direction did him no good either, because Grail only narrowly avoided what he was still thinking of as a whip. Seeing it this closely, however, he soon realised his mistake. It was in fact a tail which, even as he watched, flew up wildly into the air and then came crashing back down to strike the floor with a crack! Grail jumped as it did so, startled by the sound, and he began gibbering. But he was more disturbed by the sight of what the tail was attached to, a sinuous beast with vestigial forearms and two pairs of legs, its arms ending in curved talons. This one was a sickly grey and purple in colour, but here and there were black lesions – some of them weeping – which it bore with pride as if they were medals.
‘No… No!’ screamed Grail, reaching out for help. ‘Don’t let them hurt me!’
But the girls were already fleeing from the room, throwing open the door and rushing down the hall. Seconds later Russart appeared in the doorway. He activated the main lights, and as he did so all the visions around Grail winked out of existence, leaving him kneeling and panting for breath on the mattress. The governor was mindful that he must have been staring at his bodyguard with wide eyes, and slowly blinked a few times. Before he could stop them, tears escaped and ran down his cheeks, dripping onto his bare chest.
‘Tob… Governor?’ asked Russart. ‘What happened?’
Once again, Grail felt intimidated by that man’s towering form. Pulling the sheets around him quickly, like a toga, he covered his own plump body. ‘N-Nothing. It was nothing.’ He waved his hand as if to prove his point, but Russart didn’t look convinced.
‘Those girls were terrified, screaming. What was–’
‘I said it was nothing!’ Grail raised an eyebrow. ‘Why, don’t you believe me?’
‘I… of course, of course. But–’
‘Then stop asking me such stupid questions!’ the governor barked.
It wasn’t long before Madame Ellada herself was in the room too, far from happy with the situation, and with a look on her painted face that said she wasn’t in the mood for debate. ‘I know you are who you are,’ she said, ‘but my establishment still has a reputation to maintain.’ Grail laughed out loud at this, but she ignored it. ‘Jumping at shadows, at things that aren’t there.’
‘You will be well compensated, as always,’ Russart informed her.
‘I’d better be!’ she replied. ‘Now I think you two “gentlemen” had better get dressed and leave.’
‘With pleasure,’ Grail said as Ellada retreated, but he almost tripped on the sheets as he was clambering off the bed. Russart rushed to his side, helping him to stand, then guiding him over to where his clothes were: a simple outfit, thankfully, as they were here in secret.
‘Something did happen, didn’t it?’ said Russart, assisting him as he pulled on his trousers. ‘You can trust me, you know.’
Grail regarded him, thought about telling him exactly what had occurred, then just sighed and shook his head. ‘Overindulgence, Russart. Nothing more, I assure you. Too many stimms, too much to drink. They did not mix well together this evening.’
Russart gave him a sideways look, but Grail paid no attention. He did not want to discuss what had happened here tonight until he had been able to process it himself. And that really wasn’t going to happen while he was in this state.
In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that it was just the effects of the drugs and alcohol, feeding into his dreams; the shapes he’d been unable to discern in the darkness. A waking nightmare?
And what of the creature at the exchange? The thing just beyond Dhane’s ship? he couldn’t help asking. He had taken nothing then, had drunk nothing alcoholic. Yet Grail could still see that putrid face, those tentacles. Still see the monster they’d belonged to.
Just as he would see those from tonight for some time to come, he felt sure.
Grail’s prediction was not an inaccurate one.
Over the course of the next week or more, he began to see more of the monstrosities not only in his dreams – when he was able to sleep, that was – but in the real world as well. They would crop up when he least expected it, sometimes as he walked down halls, and he would find himself grabbing servants and screaming into their faces; insisting that the guards do more to defend him. And were those halls less crowded these days, the staff inside growing fewer and fewer in number – or simply avoiding him?
The visions would occur whether he drank or not, whether he took intoxicants or abstained. What remained unclear was whether his dreams were feeding this, or it was the other way around: manifestations of his anxiety becoming those shadows in his nightmares, or the creatures seeping out into his consciousness from the dreams.
He cancelled meetings, leaving the decision-making chiefly to others – Russart, he assumed – and eventually eschewed the company of anyone, for fear they might see him getting worse and worse; jumping at those shadows, as Madame Ellada had put it. Indeed, he barely left his chambers now, making the excuse that a sickness had taken hold of him (it wasn’t technically a lie) and when he looked in the mirror now Grail saw someone who was exhausted and unkempt. Who sported more stubble than Sachael Dhane, his hair wild and sticking out as if electrified, and with thick, dark rings around his eyes.
During one particular acute episode Grail became unsure whether he was even awake or asleep, the lines between his world and the one when he closed his eyes blurring into each other, that tingling taking over his entire body. The shadows were no longer as subtle as they’d once been, the creatures he’d seen with the tentacles, eyes, and now horns and spikes, were not hiding anymore. His whole body shivered with terror. They’d surrounded him, as he stood there in the middle with all his wealth. Bony things with swollen bellies, horns on their heads, who wore their ribs on the outside of their bodies, mucus dripping from them, making droning noises as they approached. Others, creatures of multi-coloured flame, bounded along dribbling fire and sparks behind them. Alluring women with the legs of birds, arms ending in snapping claws, slavering and licking, veins throbbing underneath their grey skin. The whispering was there again too, more demands. Grail almost got the sense that his desire and greed were somehow attracting them, feeding them.
More, you can do more! Finish your work!
At any moment, though, he expected to see Russart burst in, to ask if he was all right. Only this time he didn’t.
So, instead, Grail steeled himself and burst through the circle enveloping him. He escaped out into the corridor and rushed to his bodyguard’s quarters. Gaining access, he slammed the door behind him and pressed himself up against it.
‘Gov… Governor?’ said a shocked Russart, who was at his table poring over documents. ‘I wasn’t expecting–’
‘R-Russart, what are you doing? You’re supposed to… supposed to be protecting me!’ Grail spluttered.
‘I am busy doing just that. I’m going over the final security arrangements for the ball tomorrow,’ he stated. ‘Why?’
‘Tomorrow?’ Grail had lost all track of the time and the days.
‘You look…’ Russart pulled a face, but didn’t finish. ‘Are you not feeling any better?’
