Chương 24: A Wolf's Courtesy

They made camp at the base of a wide mushroom stalk roughly twenty minutes east of the corridor. When they happened upon the clearing, they hadn't even needed to discuss anything. The fight had completely taken out their energy, shown by their wordless agreement to rest. Lio gathered the bark panels while Ophila unpacked their supplies without being asked. William didn't even bother helping, sitting down heavily against the stalk and didn't get up, closing his eyes.

Lio could tell that the boy's ribs were hurting him again, but he didn't say anything about it and neither did William. Ophila also built her shelter in silence, her shoulder where the Skinwalker had flung her clearly bruised. Still, she didn't mention it either. Within fifteen minutes both shelters were assembled and both of them were inside them. Across from them, William had already fallen asleep without a bed, snoring loudly. Ophila lasted perhaps five minutes longer, until she too was soon knocked out.

Lio lay still and stared up at the underside of his bark panel and waited. Unlike the other two, he had things to do. He couldn't sleep now. He gave it about forty minutes. Then he got up. ◈◈◈◈ The corridor between the two Pillars was as exactly as they'd left it. He moved through it without needing a light source, simply navigating by feel and memory, his footsteps quiet against the moss. The body of the Skinwalker was where it had fallen, face down. He crouched beside it.

Then he reached into his pack and withdrew a small cloth, folded carefully around a ball-shaped object that felt soft and slightly damp. He unwrapped it, revealing the amberpulp inside, one he had selected from the cluster near the eastern seep earlier in the day, specifically because it was overripe. The skin had gone dark and foggy, the juice that was bleeding and seeping through the wrapping carrying a weird chemical smell. Most Delvers knew amberpulp only as food.

But what most of them didn't know was what happened to the juice when the fruit fermented past a certain point. Lio had discovered it a few hundred loops ago and he'd spent three subsequent loops testing the chemical compound methodically, working through different concentrations and different species, until he understood what it did and why. He'd found out that the fermented juice of an overripe amberpulp produced a state in certain Ghenna creatures that was somehow indistinguishable from death.

The exact term that experienced poisoners used was 'Thanatarch'. In short, the amberpulp could force every biological process inside their body to slow to a rate so close to zero, mimicking the death of the creature. The effect lasted between one to three hours depending on their individual body mass. It worked the best on humanoid creatures, like on the elves, on the pale Forest-Walkers of Floor 9, on the various fairy subspecies of Floors 11 through 13, and most of all, on Skinwalkers.

Knowing this, he had smeared a thin coat of it across his Adamantine blade before entering the corridor, something Ophila hadn't noticed because of the darkness. Lio pressed two fingers against the side of the Skinwalker's neck and waited. And after a moment, though it was very faint and very slow, he began to feel it. A small pulse. He sat down fully, leaning his chin on his fist.

"I know you're awake," he whispered quietly. Nothing happened.

"Wake up." But still nothing. The body remained completely motionless. Still, Lio had patience. He'd been practicing that skill for a thousand years after all. Another minute passed. Then, slowly, the Skinwalker began to move. It gave out a small sound from its mouth, and the body it was wearing rolled over stiffly. Jeanne's ruined face turned toward the ceiling of the corridor, the good one eye still left turning toward Lio. It opened her mouth, yet no sound came out.

It closed its mouth again and looked at him with a blank, stupid look on its face. Lio sighed, shaking his head.

"I know you can talk," he said.

"And I know why you're pretending you can't. But there's no point hiding it from me." He paused.

"I've encountered enough of your kind to know that." The Skinwalker looked at him, completely silent.

"So," Lio said.

"You can stop pretending." There was a long pause, until, from Jeanne's throat, a strange sound came out. It barely passed for a language, with the vowels arriving before the consonants, so the sounds overlapped in a peculiar way that was hard to wrap one's head around. And there was also a harsh accent, something that Jeanne's vocal cords shouldn't be capable of producing.

"You-knew," it said. This was the way Skinwalkers talked, neglecting to speak in complete sentences like humans.

"Before. The corridor. You-knew. That we-smart."

"I just suspected," Lio lied. In reality, he'd first learnt this during the earliest loops. This species unfortunately wasn't known for being good at keeping secrets.

"I confirmed it when you dropped the fungi cap. A creature that wasn't intelligent wouldn't have been able to pull that off." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The Skinwalker's good eye moved over him slowly, his leaning neck nodding thoughtfully.

"Smart-boy," it said.

"Annoying-smart."

"Probably," Lio agreed. It sat up fully, moving Jeanne's body carefully, lest it fall apart from all its injuries. It looked down at her bloodied hands, then back at Lio.

"You-faked," it said, pointing at itself.

"Me. Dying."

"Yes." The good eye narrowed slightly.

"The girl-one," it said.

"She doesn't-know?"

"No," Lio said.

"And she won't." It considered this for a moment.

"Why-tell me this?"

"Because you need to understand the situation clearly before I offer you anything," Lio said.

"You're alive because I chose to keep you alive. That position is useful to me, which is why I haven't changed it. But it's also useful to you."

"You-held back," it said.

"In the fighting?"

"Correct." The good eye fixed on him with a fiery intensity.

"How-much," it said.

"How-much held back?" Lio gave a small smile. He remembered how competitive the Skinwalker's culture was, how there were often competitions hosted in their secret cities.

"Just a little." The Skinwalker processed and thought about this, a clear sign of intelligence working behind Jeanne's eyes.

"What-want," it said finally.

"You. From me."

"I have a job for you," Lio said.

"You'll perform it, and in exchange I'll tell you a method in which you can get back to Floor 17 without having to go down all the Floors."

"Floor-seventeen?" it asked.

"My-home?"

"Yes."

"You-cannot." It said, shaking its limp head.

"Skinnies cannot reach Floor-seventeen."

'Skinnies' were what the Skinwalkers called humans.

"You're right, most Skinnies can't," Lio said.

"But I know a way." It looked at him for a long moment. He could see it working through his seemingly ridiculous claim.

"How-long," it said.

"Have you been-coming here? To Ghenna."

"A long time," Lio said.

"How-long is long."

"Longer than you'd believe," he said.

"And that isn't relevant to our agreement." After a few more moments of silence, it seemed to accept the agreement, nodding its head.

"What-job?" it asked.

"I need a messenger." He paused.

"The person works for an organization that will be actively looking for anything unusual. Which means I need someone whose face they won't question." The Skinwalker let out a toothy grin.

"You-want me to wear a face," it said.

"Yes."

"Whose-face?"

"I'll tell you when we have an agreement." It looked at Jeanne's hands, slowly, turning them over in the dark.

"Wearing-faces," it said, nodding carefully.

"Is what I am." It said it with a sense of pride.

"It is the only-thing. I am." Lio nodded.

"I have been on this floor," it said sadly.

"Long-time. Wrong floor. No others-like me. Bodies here are wrong-bodies. Too soft." It flexed Jeanne's fingers slowly.

"I have been very-tired."

"Why are you up here?" Lio asked, injecting a tinge of gentleness into his tone.

"Floor 1 is wrong for you. So why come up this far? The Skinwalker looked at him for a long moment, its expression heavy.

"I-followed," it said.

"Something."

"What?" Its good eye moved away from him, its expression turning into one of frustration.

"There is a-word," it said slowly.

"In my-speaking. No human-word for it." It looked back at him.

"The closest-human thing is..." It stopped, clearly struggling to form its thoughts.

"I don't…" It made a sound then that wasn't any sort of human speech, a low growling sound laced with harsh fluctuations. It continued for five seconds, then it stopped.

"That," it said simply.

"I followed-that." Lio looked at it carefully.

"Was something carrying the something?" The Skinwalker nodded.

"There-old one," it said.

"A man-Skinnie. Long-beard." It looked at its hands again.

"I followed him-up to find the source. But then he-left. Went to the surface. And I was-stuck." Lio said nothing, turning the new information over in his mind. Apparently, there was a long-bearded Delver who had gone very deep and come back up carrying something the Skinwalker had followed all the way to Floor 1. Something that had no human word for it. Then he looked back at the Skinwalker.

"Will you accept the agreement?"

"You-will take me. Down-truly?"

"After the job is complete," Lio said.

"Yes."

"How-do I know?"

"That's what this contract is for." Lio reached into his pack and withdrew a piece of parchment and a crude pencil—the exact ones he'd used to create the contract for Scillo. He smoothed the parchment against his knee and began scribbling, the ancient symbols forming under his hand. Despite the darkness, Lio wrote simply by feel, the Eigo characters taking shape perfectly. The Skinwalker watched him write, Jeanne's lips soon slowly curving into a small frown.

"You-know this language?" it asked.

"Yes," Lio said.

"It is very-old."

"Yes. Very."

"Where-learned."

"From someone who spent her life studying it," he said, not looking up from the parchment.

"She was brilliant, though she died." The Skinwalker was quiet.

"Many-brilliant ones die in Ghenna," it said, nodding slowly.

"Yes," Lio agreed.

"They do." He finished the last character and examined the completed contract.

"What-says it," the Skinwalker asked.

"Your obligations and mine." He slid the paper over to the Skinwalker.

"The language makes it binding. Neither of us can violate the terms without consequence."

"What-consequence for you."

"The same as for you," Lio said.

"Immediate death." The Skinwalker sat with the sudden and harsh revelation for a moment. Then it spoke up again.

"I have one-condition." Lio waited. It looked down at Jeanne's hands again, a look of disapproval and disgust flashing across its stolen features.

"The body," it said.

"When I go to Floor-seventeen. I choose which-body I wear." It looked up at him.

"Not this-one. Too soft-too ugly. I choose." Lio let out a small chuckle.

"Agreed," he said, and added the clause to the contract. He then held the parchment out. The Skinwalker looked at it for a long moment. Then it reached out with Jeanne's hand and pressed its palm flat against the page. The symbols immediately ignited with a harsh red light, the glowing ink lifting from the paper's surface and swarming toward the Skinwalker's chest, burrowing in with a brief and violent intensity before going dark. Afterwards, it sat very still. Then, it asked, "What-name. Do you call me?"

Lio glanced at it briefly.

"Walker," he said, without thinking too much about it. The Skinwalker stared at him for a long moment with Jeanne's one good eye, a look of profound disappointment developing on its face.

"Simple-boy," it said flatly.

"Annoying."

"It fits," Lio said, already standing up and dusting off his pants. Walker looked back at him with a dry expression. It looked down at Jeanne's hands one more time, then back up at him.

"Simple-boy names-me Walker."

"Get some rest," Lio said, unfazed.

"I'll contact you when I need you." He then turned and walked back toward the corridor entrance without looking back once.