Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1 - Chapter 8: Chapter 8

It was too much to handle.
Everywhere, Jordan saw things that reminded him how far he was from home. Each step where his feet touched solid ground was a reminder that he wasn't dreaming. His legs felt leaden, and he barely kept up with Yddris as the man led him through the streets. Occasionally he would look back the way they'd come towards the castle towers looming over them, or up the street, hoping to see Grace come running to apologise for dragging the prank out for too long.
People stared. He felt their eyes like ants on his skin. They didn't come close to him, and though he suspected it was to do with Yddris rather than himself, the staring was enough to make him wish for the ground to swallow him for a second time. Maybe he'd end up somewhere less miserable.
Shadow's Reach, as the city was called, was miserable. The sky was unbroken lead grey overhead and the people, though they moved and smiled and acted human, all went along their business like they were carrying a burden on their shoulders. For some, they walked as though that burden had already broken their backs. The fear was tangible in the air. Jordan didn't think himself particularly perceptive, but even he found it thick enough to choke on.
"Why is everyone so afraid?" he asked, not expecting Yddris to answer. For a long minute he didn't, but when Jordan glanced over he was staring at him.
"You can feel it, can you?" he grunted. "Awful, isn't it?" He sighed and took a pull from his pipe. He hadn't stopped smoking since they'd left the castle grounds. "It always gets like this when the dark season's coming. Probably not the best time to say this, but you couldn't have picked a worse time of year to come and visit."
"What's so bad about the dark season?" Jordan asked, a tremor rocking his body. He squinted at the sky and its ominous green tinge from the mountains in the distance. "Apart from that it's dark?"
"Demons," Yddris said. He finally put his pipe out and tucked it away into his cloak. "I'm about to get very busy."
Jordan stopped in his tracks. "They come into the city?"
"Not much food out in the mountains at the best of times," Yddris said, sounding unconcerned, "Let alone on the plains. They get desperate. Some of 'em just want to rifle through your sewers, but others..." He glanced Jordan's way. "Please don't puke, boy, I can't stand it."
"What?" Jordan said. "What do others eat?"
"Apparently people taste quite good. Varthi's followers certainly seem to think so." The Unspoken started walking again. The street broadened out, milling with people and lined with shops, but Jordan didn't have eyes for any of it.
For a few long moments of dumb shock, he didn't notice the man kneeling on the ground at his feet, either.
He blinked, staring down at the clasped hands and sweaty bald pate of the stranger on the ground. He took an alarmed step back, and the old man looked up at him imploringly. Between his hands dangled a pendant, tangled around his fingers so that Jordan was staring into the fat piece of jade stone in the centre.
"Please," the man said.
"Please what?" Jordan asked, looking around for Yddris and feeling his heart jump into his throat when he didn't see him. He tried to edge around the kneeler, but the man toppled onto his front and clutched at the leg of Jordan's trousers.
"Tell me why she died," he moaned. "You must know. You're otherworld, you have to know."
Horrified, Jordan reeled back, only to come face to face with a man in overalls. He seemed more lucid than the other, and smelled of metal and coal smoke, but there was a gleam in his eye that Jordan didn't like. From the shopfront behind the man's shoulder, eyes peered out at him in wonder.
"Can you explain this?" the man said, and Jordan looked down at what he was carrying.
"Oh my god," he breathed. It was a lamb's carcass, but the head was malformed, two pink snouts with lolling tongues and a third, milky eye filmed shut between them. It stank, but the man didn't seem to notice the smell as he offered it on outstretched arms.
"Take a look if you want," he said. "Third one my uncle's had this season. Is it a sign? Are we doing something wrong?"
"How would I know?" Jordan squeaked.
Then he knew. These people thought the portal was from the gods; that he was some kind of messenger. If he hadn't been certain things would turn ugly if he did he might have laughed.
"I'm not blessed," he protested, dancing out of the way as the man thrust the carcass at him again. "I swear I'm not..."
He bumped into someone else and froze as a hand clamped on his shoulder. The man who held him, however, was not Yddris.
"Let's leave him be, eh?" The stranger glanced down and winked, nails digging hard into Jordan's shoulder. "Let him get comfortable. Maybe he'll open up a fortune-tellin' booth for ya."
He cackled and began to tug Jordan away, and though the gathered mob looked disappointed they hung back, eyes wary. Jordan himself felt more than a little uneasy, but his attempts to get out from the grip on him were fruitless. The stranger frogmarched him back up the avenue of shops the way he and Yddris had come, and as they went Jordan tried to divide his attention between keeping an eye on him and looking for the Unspoken among the crowds. He refused to believe the man would just abandon him. He couldn't believe that or he would have some kind of breakdown.
Though not quite as bad as the rotting lamb carcass, his rescuer also stank. He wore dark clothes that could conceal any manner of dangerous or shady objects, and his black hair was half shaved to make room for the tattoo of a grinning horned mask taking up one side of his skull. The grin he threw over his shoulder at Jordan was yellowed and full of gaps.
"Where are we going?" Jordan asked, finding his voice. It came out as a squeak.
"We'll stop soon." The man tugged Jordan around a corner, into a narrow, dingy alley. It smelled of raw sewage and things skittered in the gloom that Jordan couldn't see. There was no one else around, and the shadows were deep enough that anyone passing would only see one man; Jordan was pressed against the wall out of view.
He tried to steady his heartbeat, and only seemed to succeed in squeezing it into his throat and making it hard to breathe. One dark eye regarded him from below the shaggy half-mop of hair. The other was milky white and stared off down the alley. A pale scar split the brow above it and dug a deep furrow in the man's cheek.
"Here we are," the man said, stepping back – though not far enough for Jordan to make a run for it – and rolled his shoulders. "Isn't this nice?"
"No."
The man snorted, pinning him to the wall with one dark eye. "You already seem too honest, boy. It won't get you far here."
"It got me out of prison?" Jordan said, ending on a gasp as the man turned to stare him fully in the face. To Jordan's surprise, he laughed.
"I like you," he said. Jordan's breath left him in a sharp gust as his back hit the wall. He hadn't even seen the man move. "So make this easy for yourself, would you?"
Under Jordan's chin, something cold and sharp made its presence known. His breath came in short gasps, sweat rolling down his face. He was sure the man would feel his heartbeat against the arm on his chest.
"I don't have money," he breathed, wincing as the movement brought his skin up against the blade.
"Good thing I don't want any, then." The man cocked his head and offered an unnerving smile. "Just a few minutes of your time." When Jordan didn't move, he continued, "I believe you when you say you aren't blessed. I promise you that. But," and he smiled again at Jordan's stifled frustration, "I'm not convinced you can't help me. See, everyone else thinks you are. You could make good money capitalising on that. Make a career out of it. I could teach you how to do it."
"How does that help you?"
"Ah, well," the man tapped his boot on the wall beside Jordan's foot, "that would be putting the cart before the horse, wouldn't it? I need to know I can trust you before I tell you something like that."
Jordan waited. He could hear the 'but'. He didn't want the man to elaborate; he wanted to leave. He wanted the blade to leave his throat just for a moment so that he could make a break for it, or better yet for Yddris to realise he was gone and come back for him. Neither of those things happened. His muscles ached from holding them so tense.
"I want you to tell me how you opened the portal."
Jordan stared. "I didn't."
The man sighed. Jordan gasped as the blade moved away from his throat, though the arm stayed where it was.
"Worth a try," the man said, casually picking something out of his teeth with the dagger he had just been threatening Jordan with. He glanced up and away again. "Would you like to know how?"
Jordan blinked. "What?" He pressed himself back into the wall to get a better look at the man and to relieve some of the pressure on his chest. He let him. "Who are you?"
The stranger smirked and tapped his nose with the flat of his knife. "That's telling."
"Are you implying that you know?" Jordan said. "Did you open it? Can you..."
"Oh, shut up." The arm pushed down again. "Listen, boy, I didn't come here to have you squealing at me. But if you wanna help me with something big – something profitable – you come find me, you hear? You'll be rewarded."
He pressed something into Jordan's hand and looked back to the alley entrance as a shadow fell across it.
"You took your fucking time," Jordan said hoarsely. The only response he got was a spiral of smoke; Yddris's attention was on the other man.
"Take your hands off him," the Unspoken grunted. "He's dirty enough as it is."
"You know each other?"
They both ignored him. The air in the alley was suddenly thick with tension. The ambient crackling which usually surrounded Yddris was stronger than before, making Jordan's hair stand on end. He shuddered, clutching his coat tighter around him as the man let him go, and pulled deep breaths of thick air into his aching lungs.
"I'm not stupid enough to come after you, Arlen," Yddris finally said, "Don't go waving your pointy metal sticks at me."
Arlen sneered, but his eyes darted to the street behind Yddris's shoulder. Some of the confidence from before was gone. "I'd love to see you try it, old man. But getting other people to do it is more your style, isn't it?"
Yddris chuckled. "I can fight, but I'm not a city guard. And you're fucking ugly, but you're not a demon. Catching you isn't my business." He turned abruptly serious. "You bothering this boy is my business, though. Let him out of there."
Arlen put his hands up in surrender, and with an exaggerated bow ushered him towards Yddris. His smile was broad and yellow in the dimness. One good eye winked at Jordan, and then the man leapt to a handhold on a nearby gutter, pulled himself over, and was gone. Almost immediately the crackling in the air quieted and Jordan was able to pull in a full breath. The object Arlen had given him sat heavy in his hand, but he found himself reluctant to show Yddris. If Arlen knew how to get him home – or at least somewhere better than this – then it would be madness not to at least look at it before he admitted to having it. Not that he was even sure he shouldn't have it; what reason did he have to trust Yddris any more than Arlen? They were both strangers, and incidentally both strangers who dressed like weirdos and made him uncomfortable.
It seemed much of muchness when he put it like that.
Yddris hadn't threatened him with a knife, he supposed, which was one point in his favour. Even so, as the Unspoken turned and left the alley after one last look at the roof Arlen had leapt onto, Jordan shoved the object in his pocket and zipped it away.
"You alright, boy?"
"Huh?" Jordan looked up. Yddris had stopped walking and was standing in front of him, gaze heavy. "Yeah. I mean no. I mean...." He shrugged. "No. Definitely not alright. Why would I be alright?" He laughed, and it had an edge of hysteria. "But about that?" He jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder. "I'm better than I should be. I already fell through a portal into a new world I didn't know existed and got arrested, put on trial and separated from my sister, so why not add whatever-the-fuck-that-was? How in the fucking fuck would I ever be alright after all that, you supercilious, chainsmoking old...FUCK!"
He fell into abrupt silence, panting and with angry tears in his eyes. He bent with his hands on his knees and let them fall to the cobbled street, then took a long breath and straightened. The demon catcher was still watching him and smoking.
"Better?"
Jordan wiped his face with his sleeve. "Yeah."
"Come on, then."
"No." He shook his head as the Unspoken looked at him with an air of mild surprise. "I want you to tell me what the fuck is going on. Until you do, I'm not moving."
Yddris sighed. "I don't know what you want me to tell you, boy. People at large don't know about portals. It's a precaution for the safety of the majority, so when they see two people fall from a random hole in the sky, it's gonna take some convincing to tell them you aren't some deity's chosen. They'll work it out eventually, as long as you don't perform any miracles in front of witnesses." He snorted. "Then you'll never be able to tell them anything."
"Why don't they know? Why didn't we know? What are they?"
"You know what they are, boy. I don't know the situation in your world, either. They don't know because they don't need to know; if they did, some of the more unsavoury types might use it to their advantage, which as you just saw for yourself some are already trying to do. If you learn anything at all in my line of work, it's that messing with forces you don't understand will never end well for you. Ever." The man stared at him for a long moment, and with each second that passed, Jordan thought that the object in his pocket grew heavier and heavier. There was no logical way Yddris could know it was there, and yet Jordan couldn't shake the feeling that he did.
When he spoke again, his voice was soft. He didn't want the answer, but he needed it.
"Why can I feel people's fear?"
For a while, he was convinced Yddris was going to give him some smart-aleck comment, but when the demon catcher replied, his voice was equally soft.
"I don't know," he said. "And I will never know if you don't let me take you somewhere I can keep an eye on you. So," his voice rose to his usual volume, "Are you coming or are we going to stand here all night?"
Jordan scowled. He couldn't stop glancing over his shoulder. Every time he swallowed he felt that cold edge on his skin and his heart picked up.
As he followed Yddris, the shadows followed him.