Swirling blackness, too thick to be fog but not substantial enough to be water, surrounded her. Gnyphe lifted her hands and tried to swim upward, but the substance wasn’t quite thick enough to provide the needed resistance.
The stone she was standing on slanted upward—maybe she could crawl out. She didn’t know why she wasn’t bound—hadn’t she been tied with ropes just moments before?—but she wasn’t going to miss her opportunity, so she started moving. Her lungs burned; when she opened her mouth and inhaled she found no air. She had to escape quickly.
As she crawled, she realized that someone was standing near her in the murky darkness. A spike of alarm made Gnyphe’s heart quicken: that silhouette hadn’t been there just moments before.
Then familiarity washed over her, along with a sense of detachment—she had experienced this dream already, many times. Her head crested the surface of the strange substance. Everything was as she remembered it: the walls of the cavern, the crooked stalactites, and the robed figures that surrounded her, all were composed of a smoky substance that sometimes revealed, sometimes obscured, what she saw.
As always, Gnyphe was powerless to act except, for some reason, to control her eyes and neck. She swiveled her head to take in every detail of the dark cavern, the dramatically gasping robed figures that surrounded her, as she crawled out of the pool. Maybe this time she would discover something, even the smallest detail, that would tell her what this meant.
Gnyphe stood, rising farther from the ground than she should, and continued to grow higher into the air. The figures surrounding her stepped back, hoods falling off their heads to reveal fearful human faces. Two didn’t look like they belonged: both short, the man meaty and the woman slim, neither wearing a robe. Their faces showed despair rather than fear.
A robed man approached her and shouted something, a command.
Gnyphe didn’t like that. Her body filled with a hot rage. She swiped at him, crumpling his body like wet parchment and tossing him to the side. Then, filled with a lust she couldn’t satisfy, she set about butchering the room; Gnyphe lost the details of what she was in the screams, the blood, the snapping bones; she had no idea how long it lasted. She never remembered this part of the dream, no matter how hard she tried, as anything more than a blur after.
The dream always ended the same way; Gnyphe would turn on the last figure, a girl standing by the edge of the pool, ready to kill her, too. She knew she wouldn’t remember almost any details about the girl when she awoke, but something about the girl would stop her, cause her to flee the dark cavern down a long, black, twisty tunnel, feeling weaker, diminished, as she ran, missing the details of what was around her until she stumbled to the cold stone and felt darkness close in on her. . .
This time, the girl looked her in the eyes and Gnyphe froze. The girl wore Gnyphe’s face, but younger; her eyes were wrong, both hazel rather than one hazel and one grey. The girl sneered, narrowing her eyes, and said, “There you are.”
Gnyphe, eight times the girl’s size and surrounded by the viscera of her victims, fled in terror.
#
Gnyphe’s eyes snapped open. Her body felt as though it were aflame; she glanced down at herself and, in the flickering lantern light, saw burning lines traced across her flesh, like black fire burning out of her veins and through her skin. With it came an angry desire to fight, to injure, to kill—the same emotion she felt in her dream, the same emotion she felt whenever the darkness in her belly tried to communicate with her.
A shadow on the far wall twisted into a wolfish shape. It leered at her, making the fire in her veins flare hotter.
No—no. I’m not that monster—never again. Go away— Gnyphe thought, then loudly whispered, “Go away!”
The black fire began retreating, cooling, as it slowly returned to the darkness that filled her belly, as the shadows on the wall returned to normal. The creature within her was sleeping again. There was no question in Gnyphe’s mind that it was connected to the events of her nightmare. Memories. The dream was too real, too consistent, to be mere vision.
Gnyphe clenched her hands, almost cutting her palms with her nails, and exhaled slowly as she reviewed the dream, avoiding thinking about the monster she had become. Only the girl at the end had changed—why? And why now? What had changed? Nothing that had changed had answered any of Gnyphe’s questions—if anything, she was left with more.
Gnyphe shuddered. How much did I lose to the dream this time? Hours? Days? Weeks? The most she had ever lost after waking from her recurring dream was a month’s worth of memories, always just prior to her waking up. Sometimes she recovered part or all of them; sometimes they never returned.
She looked around, orienting herself. She was in a one-room apartment; from the sour smell in the air she was clearly in the Chamberpot. But why was the door on the floor in splinters? Did she do that? No—Gnyphe wasn’t strong enough to kick down that door. But Tactan, sitting near the doorway, could have. But what could possibly enrage the inquisitive, peaceful jhar-voor to violence? Did Tactan also flip the table over?
Gnyphe’s attention turned to the apartment itself again, hoping to find answers there. There were no decorations on the walls, nor any furniture that Gnyphe could see beyond the damaged table. A sense told her that, not considering the damage, it could be nicer, homier, with a little work and love; Gnyphe didn’t believe the sense belonged to her, but, like the pride or disappointment she sometimes felt over an item’s craftmanship, pursuing that feeling never gave her any real insights on her past self.
Gnyphe didn’t recognize any of it. She curled into a ball and pressed her palms against her forehead and focused on the pressure.
Tactan whispered, “The dream with the strange cave again?”
“Yes. . .” Gnyphe whispered.
“Do you want to discuss it? Did you discover anything new?”
The girl staring at her, with eyes so piercing Gnyphe wondered if they somehow saw out of the memory and into reality. “The girl looked at me, but that’s it. I don’t know why I wish. . .” She looked up and wondered why Tactan was holding fingers over its forehead, then realized it was using its fingers like eyebrows to make an inquisitive expression. “Why are you doing that?”
“Humans use their facial features to express curiosity and concern. I don’t have those—facial features, I mean—but I wanted to see if I could express a comparable sort of care with what I do have.”
Gnyphe shook her head. She looked down and saw Little Jonno curled into a ball, dried tears barely visible on his cheeks. Gnyphe felt cold with worry for the boy. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the lump she felt—a finger. Kat’s finger. Her memories of the day before flowed into her head like water poured into a jar. Gnyphe took a long, slow, shaky breath, relief over her returned memories conflicting with her concern for Kat.
Tactan cocked its head as it watched Gnyphe stare at the finger in her hand. “Kraw will find her trail, I’m sure. That kekeblin. . . most persistent, quite stubborn. I’m sure you and he will return Kat to us before anything. . . irreversible happens.”
“Tell me something happy, Tactan,” Gnyphe whispered as she slipped Kat’s finger back into a pocket stiff with dried blood, then glanced at Little Jonno to ensure that he hadn’t seen anything. “Push back the darkness.”
The jhar-voor clicked its mandibles to confirm that it heard Gnyphe, then muttered, “Ah, the great human ritual of putting one on the spot, as you say. Hmmm.” Tactan lifted its hand and picked up one of Jonno’s flowers. “These flowers are very attractive. Voor live most of life in darkness, so I don’t have a full appreciation of visual appeal—but think of the simple life these small plants sustain! They hold the soil in place. They provide texture to the ground. Many small bugs are able to live off of but one flower, while larger creatures may still enjoy them as a treat or sustenance.” Unable to stop itself, Tactan scooped the head of the Vroash dandelion into its mouth with its mandibles. “And they taste quite good, too! Their small, simple goodness is there for anyone capable of seeing it.”
Gnyphe took a deep breath and decided to follow Tactan’s conversation. “I have never thought of a dandelion that way before. There are fields full of thousands of these little flowers somewhere—I’d like to see that one day.”
“You’ve never left Chapelport?” Tactan asked.
“I. . . don’t know.” Gnyphe turned away; she didn’t like being reminded about all she had forgotten. The Chamberpot had been her home, its uneven stones her bed, its shadows her friends and family, since waking up in an alley with no memory of who she was. But even those memories were fraying; Gnyphe worried that she was losing grasp of the life that she had cobbled together, one dream at a time. “Thank you for thinking of something. . . sunny, Tactan. I’ll try to. . . remember it.”
Tactan cocked its head, but said nothing further. Gnyphe lay on her side, staring at Little Jonno’s sleeping face, and brushed some hair behind his ear. Kat wasn’t just a sister to Jonno, but a mother—he would lose everything, almost just as she had, if they didn’t save Kat.
She shouldn’t have risked sleep. She should have found something useful to do, rather than solely wait for Kraw to return. But old habits were hard to shake. Streetlings who survived learned how to fall asleep instantly when they had a moment—no one ever knew when they would rest safely again—and woke just as easily. Finding a home for herself hadn’t changed that instinct.
“I see Kraw!” Tactan exclaimed.
The kekeblin emerged from the cave-like dark of an alley across the street, his shaggy brown fur creating a spiderweb of shadows across his body in the early dark torchlight. Kraw’s head was down as he padded forward on his hind legs, his tail curled into a tight ball, his ears flattened over the top of his unblinking eyes, and his front claws worrying at each other.
Gnyphe watched the kekeblin tensely as he approached. She patted Little Jonno’s back as the boy stirred, rubbed his eyes, and sat up, blinking blearily as he did so.
“Bad trail,” Kraw said as he walked into Kat’s apartment and sat down. “Chamberpot smell is strong. Followed it—two people and Kat, male humans, I think. Split up. Followed trail with Kat. Found this,” Kraw uncurled his tail and revealed a tattered piece of yellow fabric.
“Kat’s dress,” Little Jonno breathed. He reached out and Kraw handed him the torn fabric; Little Jonno held it close to his chest.
“Had strong smell of Kat,” Kraw added. “Not washed with soap in some time; is good. Made my job easier. Still failed, me. Follow trail mountainside, then too many smells. Not good, not good.” Kraw bowed his head and began rocking his body side-to-side in agitation. “Jonno, I have failed you.”
Everyone stared at nothing for a few moments. Gnyphe felt deep loss threatening to overwhelm her again, knew she needed to act to head it off. She jumped to her feet. “Kat’s not dead. If someone just wanted to kill her, why drag her away? We’re in the Chamberpot—the killer’s not going to be found, even if Kat’s body is. And why would we find a torn piece of her dress elsewhere if she weren’t alive and fighting back? We must still have time to save her.”
“I don’t suppose alerting the Guard is an option?” Tactan ventured.
Kraw snorted.
“What are they going to do?” Gnyphe responded. “They can’t stop a crime that already happened and, if no one has reported it yet, then no one chose to see—or remember. Besides, if the Guard investigated every missing streetling in the Chamberpot. . . well, enough said. Lead me to where you found the torn dress. Maybe, together, we can figure out the next step.”
Kraw nodded. “Move quickly. Much faster when I do not need to discern the scents.” He hopped out of the apartment, looked back, and said, “Well?”
Gnyphe looked at Tactan and Little Jonno. Tactan tended to be a liability rather than an asset when it came to travelling unnoticed. And Gnyphe didn’t trust Little Jonno’s emotional state. “I think you two should stay here and look out for each other. Early dark has fallen,” Gnyphe said. Kraw nodded his agreement.
“Oh, you’ll have no reason to worry about me,” Tactan said, then stood. It had to hunch over to avoid hitting its head against the ceiling as it spoke. “And I don’t think you’ll be disappointed to have an extra pair of eyes—particularly ones that see in the dark as well as mine do.”
“I’m not staying here. My sister is out there,” Little Jonno said firmly, fist squeezing the torn dress.
Gnyphe twisted her mouth. “Next time,” she said earnestly. She knelt and held Little Jonno’s hand. “Kraw and I are just going to do some looking around, try to gather some information, keep a low profile. We’ll come back and share everything we find. And besides, I need you to take care of Tactan—”
“Me?” Tactan protested.
“—because Tactan has no idea how to take care of itself if there’s trouble. And you watch out for Little Jonno, too, Tactan.” Gnyphe looked at the jhar-voor seriously. “This isn’t the first time I’ve wished you could get into our home without my help; stay here, watch each other’s back, stay out of trouble. If someone comes back, stay nearby; Kraw and I will find you. In fact, Kraw, maybe you want to get a good sniff of both of them before we go? Just in case?”
Kraw sighed deeply, then ambled back into the apartment. He spent a minute sniffing Little Jonno and Tactan over, then said, “Little Jonno easy to find—much stink. Tactan—mmm, very little scent. Like trying to track man down a stream.”
“You’ve done that before?” Little Jonno asked. Kraw kek’d in response.
Tactan brought its hands together and said, “A delicious offer that gives me a captive audience of one—I will accept. We will, I believe the phrase is, bolster the fort.” The jhar-voor began drumming its fingers together, a gesture that looked more sinister than mischievous on the large bug-monster.
“Just don’t eat Little Jonno,” Gnyphe threw over her shoulder as she and Kraw exited into the street.
Before disappearing into the darkness of another alley, Gnyphe heard a quick exchange between Little Jonno and Tactan:
“Jhar-voor eat people?” Little Jonno stuttered.
“Not our preferred meal,” Tactan responded. “Anyway, Gnyphe left me with some questions to discuss. First, why has the human species developed so that it may only spawn offspring by exchanging currency?”
Copyright © 2025 by David Ludlow
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