Clarity engulfed me, as I could see, once more. This time, however, I had a view of the world through Herbert’s eyes. Everything seemed more colorful, the image sharper and brighter. Before us, Ramin stood—a flaming figure, the fire licking at the air around him.
“Mm-hm. You’re in me, and I promise not to eat you. How’s that for a beginning to our new friendship?” he replied. His tone was heavy, weighing me down with every consonant. “Don’t be afraid. I can feel your fear, and it’s quite insulting. I promised the warlock I’d keep you safe, and I will. Ignore the drool, darling. A well-behaved dog won’t take the snack until you give it to him, but that won’t stop the poor chap from drooling.”
Actually, that made a lot of sense. It also made me giggle. “You consider yourself as well trained as a dog?”
“I didn’t ask for it, but… yes,” Herbert said. “Now, are we ready to go?”
“Hold on,” I replied, noticing Ramin move.
The Fire Hermessi took a step forward, and I could sense the ghoul’s wariness. He wasn’t fond of the Hermessi, from what I was able to tell. “You hold her close,” he said, “or it won’t just be the witches you’ll have to deal with if anything happens to her, Herbert.”
Herbert purred like a cat and gave Ramin a nod. “Don’t even go there,” the ghoul said to me, inwardly. “Little known fact, but an angry Hermessi can rough up a ghoul, if provoked. I haven’t experienced it myself, but I hear it’s nasty business.”
“Insightful. And somewhat reassuring, actually. Thank you, Herbert,” I replied politely, doing my best to put my fear aside, as he’d asked. The terms of this arrangement worked in our favor, after all. I’d get my body back, and he’d get to live freely for it.
“Take care of yourself,” Ramin said to all of us. “Harper will relay everything she’s learned from me, once she’s back.”
“And, worst-case scenario, what if she doesn’t?” Corrine asked, and immediately apologized, noticing the startled glances around her. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask!”
“I will know, and I will find a way to tell you everything myself. I’m afraid there is no time left for me here.”
He lost his humanoid shape and turned into an incandescent ball, hovering inches above the ground. A blink of the eye later, he shot upward and became a tiny glimmer in the sky, before piercing the storm clouds and leaving Calliope altogether.
The Shills, the Bajangs, and the Daughters were getting closer to the crater. Both Herbert and I could hear them. Blood trickled from the upper edge, a quiet and heartbreaking little stream signaling the loss of someone’s life.
“You need to go, now,” Phoenix breathed, increasingly agitated.
Ibrahim showed us the pencil case. “This breaks as soon as I hear Harper’s voice from Neraka again.”
Herbert huffed, then moved away from the group. He rushed upward and out of the crater, and as soon as we reached the top, I could see the true horror unfolding on the plains. Shills and Bajangs at each other’s throats, snarling and biting and tearing and clawing with a viciousness I hadn’t seen since the pit wolves rammed into Shaytan’s daemon army on Neraka, during our final battle. Blood glazed the green grass, and loose tufts of reddish fur were scattered across it. The Daughters were fierce in their defenses, casting violent physical attacks against the Shills—a telekinetic offensive that caught most of them and mangled them beyond recognition. The Bajangs didn’t hold back, either, filling the gaps of the Daughters’ attacks.
But more Shills were coming from the woods. The storm clouds above thickened and darkened, and lightning bolts began to reach down and tear hot holes into the ground around the Daughters and the crater.
“They’ll be fine,” Herbert said, walking away from the conflict, a little too casual for my taste.
“I just want my brother and my friends out of there,” I replied.
He threw a glance back. The farther we got from them, the less I could see. Pink streaks of light dashed into the crater a few minutes later, and everyone disappeared. Herbert breathed the sigh of relief for me. “See? They’re gone now.”
The Bajangs withdrew as well, running as fast as they could back to Stonewall. They left their dead behind, unable to both carry them and fend off the Shills’ attacks. Fortunately, the monsters didn’t chase after the Bajangs. They stayed there, roaring and looking around, trying to figure out where Ramin had gone.
“Are we walking to Neraka?” I asked, my sarcasm back.
“No, sugar plum, we’re going to a high point so I can let loose and tread between dimensions again,” Herbert said to me.
“Okay, now that I can actually process this whole situation properly, can you please tell me how it is that I can hear you and understand you without speaking your hissy language?” I asked. I’d been so busy stressing over Ramin and the others that this blatantly obvious anomaly had entirely slipped from my awareness.
“You’re a sentry. I’m a ghoul. One of the original ghouls, like I once was, made your entire species. Of course we can communicate, darling,” Herbert replied. “You perceive me differently, if I want you to.”
“If you want me to?”
“Well, your brother’s a sentry, but I didn’t bother revealing this type of connection to him, did I?”
No, he hadn’t. He’d stuck to his ghoulish language back in the crater. “Why didn’t you?” I asked him.
“Because it wasn’t the time or the place to establish new relationships between my kind and yours,” Herbert said. He moved remarkably fast, and the world dashed past us in shades of green and dark ocean blue. He took us down the rocky coast, farther south. A tall cliff rose in the distance, its base smothered in trees and leafy shrubs. I figured that was the high point he needed in order to “let loose.”
“I see. Why all the terms of endearment, then? Darling, sugar plum, and whatever else you might come up with along the way. Are they part of your vocabulary? I doubt you’d ever call Ibrahim ‘sugar plum.’” I giggled.
“No, I used to call him Master. As for you, Harper, well… you’re a Hellswan. I knew Hellswan.”
“Which Hellswan?” I asked, somewhat confused.
“The original ghoul that created your bloodline. His name was Hellswan. The six early kingdoms of Nevertide all started from original ghouls who gathered humans around them and turned them into sentries. They gave their names to the royal bloodlines a long time ago,” Herbert explained. I found myself to be astonished and speechless for a while. I hadn’t known that, and I doubted my father or his ancestors knew about this. We would’ve found something in Nevertide’s document archives or folklore, if they had.
Herbert stopped for a moment and glanced back toward the northwest, where the crater was still visible, albeit significantly smaller from here. “Hm. They’re being destroyed.”
Indeed, the mass of Shills began exploding into pink puffs of dust. Pop. Pop. Pop. One after the other, leaving the battered plain empty but for the Bajangs that had perished in that fight.
“Maybe the Hermessi don’t need them anymore. They probably sensed that Ramin is gone, so they have no reason to pursue aggression against the locals,” I said, watching the storm clouds disband, clearing the sky in wandering grayish threads that eventually dissipated.
“There’s no use in punishing the locals now, when they can just wipe them all out later, right?” Herbert chuckled.
“I take it Ibrahim briefed you on our situation?”
“More or less. I dug through his brain while giving him everything I know about the Reapers,” Herbert replied. “Lots of nasty stuff in the warlock’s head. You people have your hands full, obviously.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” I sighed. “It’s the end of the world, unless we find a way to stop it.”