Exile's Mark

 

The Prodigal, they might have called me. The Hare in the Snare might be more accurate, though. I didn't know what was going on at first. Not at all. One moment I was going full throttle, my feet and legs light as air and all but numb under me. The next the whole world had inverted.

"Let me out!" I yowled for the first few hours. They could have heard me all the way on Venus, even through the vacuum of space. That stopped when the last of my voice gave up, and all I could do was rasp out whispering breaths.

I fell asleep not long after that, though the lapse into unconsciousness didn't last long. I woke up at the behest of a nightmare, a phantasmal grizzly stalking out of the dark to ravage me. My eyes snapped open and I hauled myself up and up the rope that had caught my ankle, rolled over onto the thick branch it was tethered to. I lapsed back to sleep when the adrenaline petered off.

Daylight couldn't pierce the trees, but torchlight winked through the brush. Thin white figures flowed around trunks and boulders, wisps in the deep green. They had eyes yellow as yolk and pupils dark as the deepest pit in the ocean. They smiled up at me, and their smiles were as snarls; a show of teeth, not a show of good will.

"Hello? Can you help me?" I asked like a fool.

I’d learned long ago that no one could help me. No one would help me. The burning in my arm drew my attention for the first time in days. An angry red rash that emitted a dim light had enveloped from my wrist to my elbow. I winced as the low burn sank deeper into my flesh. I could feel it in my bones.

The figures faltered when they saw the mark, but it only slowed their step. They redoubled their efforts and encircled the tree, moving slowly, slowly, a rotating ring of flowing robes and frail bodies. Open mouths gaped up at me, jagged teeth and blackened gums sucking in the damp air.

“I just need food,” I called down. “Water, too, if you have it!”

But they didn’t respond. Not in any meaningful way. They only let off this low moan, like a monastery full of wounded animals. I was parched and famished, clinging to consciousness by a thread. The thread snapped as their moans and groans swelled into a chant. My arm throbbed in time with the ghastly chorus; the pain reached a crescendo, and my body shut down in response.

I was slipping.

I felt my hand constrict, felt bark snap like brittle bones under my fingertips. My eyes opened, my eyeballs dry and stinging. I hung from the branch by one arm, my legs dangling twenty-something feet over the heads of the wretched gathering. My arm blazed like a wildfire; the pain was so great that all else dissolved to white light and static. I could barely see. Could barely hear.

My will played no role; my arm hauled me back atop the branch. My legs held me steady. I managed to regain my air. A dark sensation settled over the white-garbed beings below. They redoubled their efforts, and my arm screeched in response. Only, no. That wasn’t a pain response. Something was actually screeching. My eyes tracked the noise back to the depths of the forest. Just on the edge of sight, something large and wet and writhing emerged, flowing toward us.

Like a wave crashing over the shore, the black and green mass crashed and gave way to a single tiny form; a child, as aged and ruined as the would-be monks. It collapsed to its knees and crawled into the gathering. It paused when it reached the base of my tree, halted by the sudden verticality. I let off a sigh of relief, but it came a moment too soon.

The deathly infant set to slapping at the roots and moss-strewn base, seeking purchase. To my horror, it managed to wedge its tiny fingers into the rivets and wrinkles, and began to climb.

At a loss for what else to do, I sucked in a sharp breath, braced myself, and jumped. Hurtling through the air, all I had left was to pray that my ankles survived the landing. The exile’s mark had other ideas.

I landed on my hand, and, feeling no pain, rolled to a standing position.

Dumbfounded, I stared at my arm; it was twisted at the elbow, facing the wrong direction. Still, no pain. It had acted alone again; not only that, it had performed another inhuman feat. Several, really. I’d never heard the exile’s mark to lead to such results. Then again, the kiss of an infernal… Maybe there was some sense to it.

There was no point dwelling on the matter just then.

As the first of the wretched monks sniffed out my new location, I turned heel and ran.