The Song of Vhal Eirke

The lake was black as ink, completely overcome by the poisonous rains above. The spirits that usually came to drink and dance in its waters had vanished. Even the moonlight seemed to waver upon that dark surface, turning the ripples into dangerous snakes poised to bite.

Beside the lake, a man (who was not really a man) stood beneath the thunderous pressure of the rainfall and stared with a thick, familiar feeling weighing on his chest. It was a feeling every one of his kind had to grow used to. It was a feeling he would never escape, a trauma he would never forget.

He sighed, and a familiar voice answered him: ‘You are too late, Grendel.’

The man who was not a man—Grendel—fell to his knees as though his legs had simply given up holding him. It was as though every ounce of energy inside him had disappeared, leaving only the dregs and distorted remains of what had once been a powerful being. He didn’t look powerful now. He looked only lost, desperate, disparaging, reaching for comforts that no longer paid him mind.

‘Why?’ he asked, and his voice was a lost breath on a sea breeze. ‘Why has this happened?’

The voice did not answer him. It didn’t need to. There was no answer, and pointless words would come of little comfort to someone like him.

He turned his eyes up, fixing them on the rotting image of his sister.

Like the lake, she was almost overcome with decay. Black water curled up her arms, covered her face. She was the emptiness of night, with no stars to brighten her way. And she was dying.

Grendel let out a noise halfway between a sob and a gasp, and the woman closed her eyes as inky water dripped from her hair.

‘Someone has sent the rains,’ she said, and even her voice was cracked and rotting. ‘It will take us all soon enough. I was always the weakest of us; it makes sense I would be the first to die.’

‘Don’t,’ Grendel choked. ‘You aren’t going to die. I’ll save you. I’ll find a way.’

‘There is no way.’

‘I’ll make a way.’

But when she opened her eyes, his sister only seemed to feel a deep, strange pity. ‘We exist to serve the woods, not the waters,’ she reminded him. ‘It would be selfish to waste time on such things. Grendel…’

She approached him slowly, and he could only gaze up at her as she lifted one rotting hand above his head. It was as if she wanted to pat him, but she must have thought better of it, for she withdrew her hand.

’This is no normal rainfall,’ she said softly. ‘They mean to take us one by one. But this is no personal attack. They are coming for the woods, for what it holds, and if we waste time saving each other, we will be playing directly into their hands.’

Grendel said nothing. The rain thundered in his pointed ears, a water-army coming for him. Heavy mud dripped down the ends of his sleeves as they trailed on the ground.

‘I am sorry,’ the lake-woman said, and even the wet air around them knew she meant it. ‘It is a long and difficult road, the road of loneliness.’

‘I am not lonely,’ he said sharply, but he wouldn’t meet her watery eyes.

‘Grendel,’ she said again. Pleading. But she didn’t say anything more, so whatever plea she had been thinking of died there in her mind.

‘So this is it, then?’ Grendel asked. The sharpness had not left his voice. ‘You’ll just let yourself die? You’ll just let Raila and I mourn?’

‘You and Raila are stronger than me,’ she said.

‘That’s not true.’

‘Such hollow reassurances are so human,’ she said, tilting her head like a reptile. ‘You are still fond of them, and yet, it is because of them that we must be separated by time and death. You have sympathy for that familiar old devil, but it is that devil that would hang you up and squeeze all the love and life out of you. It is that devil that has killed me.’

Grendel was silent, head bowed, sea-foam hair falling into his fae eyes.

‘If you love them so much,’ the woman reasoned, ’think of them. We protect the mask for them. Should it fall into human hands, they would lose everything. We would lose everything. Don’t you think this is true? Don’t you realise?’

He sighed softly, and the sound was so tired, it made all his angular features look a thousand times older. Age seeped into his eyes: eyes that wept without crying. ‘I do not know. But I cannot protect the mask forever. I am…I am tired.’

He trailed off into silence. The confession hung in the air between them, heavy but understood by both. The lake-woman was just that: a part of the lake. She was tied to it, and could only give as much as it allowed. Grendel was, perhaps, less trapped than she, but he was still trapped. Lives like theirs did not include the comforts of forever. Lives like theirs only included pain and pain and pain.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, the black water was already beginning to pull her back down, witches’ hands dragging her under.

The water-woman sighed again, and the sound was full of feeling, heavy and cold. ‘Our time is done; you must go now.’

He just looked at her. Then, softly, he said, ‘I will try to find Raila. And I will try to save you.’

The lake-woman’s face hardened, but her eyes were full of the feelings she could not speak aloud. ‘Do not waste your time. You are needed elsewhere. I mean it, Grendel. The mask’s power already seeps into this world; look at this rain. It won’t be long now. Protect it. Protect it with your soul before the water runs dry.’

The black water had almost completely taken her now. He could see only one eye, half of her mouth, ink wrapping around her like fingers.

‘I can’t,’ he said, and suddenly there was no age at all in his voice. He sounded like a child, a boy wrapped in shadows he didn’t want, didn’t understand. ‘I am not strong enough. Sedna,’ he reached in as if he intended to grip her hand, his sea eyes wide and wild. ‘I…’

‘Your fear will be your downfall,’ Sedna gasped, her voice barely a whisper as dark energy spread through her once more. She managed to push up one last time, reaching out of the water, pressing cold lips against his cheek. ‘You are the youngest, but you are also the strongest. You must believe it. Believe,’ she said softly, ‘that your soul will find its course.’

He closed his eyes.

‘Grendel,’ she said, and her voice was barely there; he heard water in it, bubbling in her disappearing mouth. 'Please. You must be strong. Try.’

‘I will,’ he managed to spit out. ‘I swear to you, I will try.’

He thought he heard her let out one last sigh, this one of relief, of reassurance. And then came the silence. More deafening than the rainfall, more vile than the mud.

He opened his eyes again.

She was gone. The poison of the lake had spread once more, dragging her down into the depths of endless slumber. And for the first time in centuries, Lord Grendel was alone.