Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

morbid contemplation, a consolation for ageless
pharaohs as they sought to justify the way they administered the
suffering of their fellow creatures. No wonder it appealed to them so
much.
    Gemo and Reth talked on, more and more rapidly, entering realms of
speculation he couldn’t begin to follow.
     
    Callisto told Asgard what she was intending to do. She wanted to
climb that tall, braided tree. But she would have to take on Night to
do it.
    She walked along the narrowing beach, seeking scraps of people, of
newborns and others, washed up by the pitiless black sea. She picked
up what looked like a human foot. It was oddly dry, cold, the flesh
and even the bones crumbling at her touch.
    She collected as many of these hideous shards as she could hold,
and toiled back along the barren dust.
    Then she worked her way through the forest back to the great tree,
where she had encountered the creature called Night. She paused every
few paces and pushed a section of corpse into the ground. She covered
each fragment with ripped-up grass and bits of bark.
    ’You’re crazy,’ Asgard said, trailing her, arms full of dried,
crumbling flesh and bone.
    ’I know,’ Callisto said. ’I’m going anyway.’
    Asgard would not come far enough to reach the tree itself. So
Callisto completed her journey alone.
    Once more she reached the base of Night’s tree. Once more, her
heart thumping hard, she began to climb.
    The creature, Night, seemed to have expected her. He moved from
branch to branch, far above, a massive blur, and he clambered with
ferocious purpose down the trunk.
    When she was sure he had seen her she scrambled hurriedly back to
the ground.
    He followed her - but not all the way to the ground. He clung to
his trunk, his broad face broken by that immense, bloody mouth,
hissing at her.
    She glowered back, and took a tentative step towards the tree.
’Come get me,’ she muttered. ’What are you waiting for?’ She took a
piece of corpse (a hand - briefly her stomach turned), and she hurled
it up at him.
    He ducked aside, startled. But as the severed hand came by he
caught it neatly in his scoop of a mouth, crunched once and swallowed
it whole. He looked down at her with new interest.
    And he took one tentative step towards the ground.
    ’That’s it,’ she crooned. ’Come on. Come eat the flesh. Come eat
me, if that’s what you want - ’
    Without warning he leapt from the trunk, immense hands
splayed.
    She screamed and staggered back. He crashed to the ground perhaps
an arm’s length from her. One massive fist slammed into her ankle,
sending a stab of pain that made her cry out. If he’d landed on top
of her he would surely have crushed her.
    The beast, winded, was already clambering to his feet.
    She got up and ran, ignoring the pain of her ankle. Night followed
her, his lumbering four-legged pursuit slow but relentless. As she
ran she kicked open her buried caches of body parts. He snapped them
up and gobbled them down, barely slowing. The morsels seemed
pathetically inadequate in the face of Night’s giant reality.
    She burst out onto the open beach, still running for her life. She
reached the lip of the sea, skidding to a halt before the lapping
black liquid. Her plan had been to reach the sea, to lure Night into
it.
    But when she turned, she saw that Night had hesitated on the
fringe of the forest, blinking in the light. Perhaps he was aware
that she had deliberately drawn him here. He seemed to dismiss her
calculations. He stepped forward deliberately, his immense feet
sinking into the soft dust. There was no need for him to rush.
    Callisto was already exhausted, and, trapped before the sea, there
was nowhere for her to run.
    Now he was out in the open she saw how far from the human form he
had become, with his body a distorted slab of muscle, a mouth that
had widened until it stretched around his head. And yet scraps of
clothing clung to him, the remnants of a coverall of the same
unidentifiable colour as her own. Once this creature, too, had been a
newborn here, landing screaming on this desolate beach.
    He walked up to her. He towered over her, and she wondered how
many unfortunates he had devoured to reach such proportions.
    Beyond his looming shoulder, she could see Asgard, pacing back and
forth along the beach.
    ’Great plan,’ Asgard called. ’Now what?’
    ’I - ’
    Night raised himself up on his hind legs, huge hands pawing at the
air over her head. He roared wordlessly, and bloody breath