Jaana willed the babbling in her head to cease, but when it did, an altogether different sound came drifting across the night air, a simultaneous choking and chanting that filled her with dread.
Yet still she drew closer, down the gentle slope towards the lake shore, her feet squelching in the muddy ground under the thin layer of snow. The wind chased itself across the lake, rippling the surface. She had walked to within fifty yards of the thin, almost skeletal figures- and still these creatures seemed to know nothing of her presence, for they had not turned or even moved- when she felt a sudden mad pulsing and movement, as if her blood itself was swirling in strange directions. Jaana felt her heart thump painfully. What are they? she thought desperately.
The taller of the two figures looked down at its companion- though in truth Jaana could see no eyes, only the hood under which they must be hidden- and pointed across the water to the distant far shore. Then it spoke, and the voice, carried across the wind, was one of bestial cunning, the crunch of rotting bones.
“From the beginning, to the end, from the first blood to the last, hear us, our masters.” The words were uttered almost as a chant, in symphony with the lapping of the wavelets against the shore. And I hear you too, Jaana thought, almost delirious with the sudden heat behind her eyes and in her limbs. She felt certain that she would melt through the snow, even through the muddy earth beneath. I hear you, and I feel every beat of your rotten hearts.
The smaller figure turned as if to peer up at its companion. Although Jaana could see little detail, she became aware with a feeling of sudden horror that something misshapen existed under the cloak of the smaller figure, something that was changing the very form of the body, rending bone and tissue slowly apart. And as she closed her eyes, she could even hear it.
The tall figure laughed again, and with terrifying ease, reached under the hood of its companion’s robe and tugged a handful of hair from the head of its companion, scattering it in the breeze with a laconic gesture. “Time below and time above…”
Then the other being spoke up. “I sleep. I wake. I sleep…” It was not any kind of voice Jaana could recognise. Entrenched with filth, mud or slime, it was a hoarse, choking gurgle, spoken through a broken throat, a vile sound hiding in a broken body. Worse still, it changed in pitch the whole while, as if the sound was nothing more than a reflection of something chaotic happening to this wretched form.
I will send you back under the earth, came that mad, hot voice from within her again, and both of them turned in the same instant, as if they had heard those unspoken words. Jaana could feel the taller figure smile as if in welcome, although it had no face, let alone a mouth. She raised a hand as if to defend herself, and the wave of rage inside overwhelmed her completely. In utter agony, she clapped her hands over her ears and fell to the ground, but even through what blood-rimmed sight remained she saw the smaller figure burst into flames and also fall to the ground. The other one howled as if in anguish. Then it turned, the cloak billowing, to face the waters of the lake again. The creature raised both thin, bony arms to the sky as it exalting some unseen god.
The cloak simply fell to the floor in a heap; of its wearer, there was now no sign, though ripples of darkness, like a scattering of deep shadows cast over the lake, mingled with the water for a moment. All that remained was the body lying motionless, flames licking at the still form, at the shore of the lake. Within only a few of Jaana’s short, frightened breaths, the body became ash. As she sat up in the mud and snow, the breeze carried it out across the waters of the lake in an angry swirl.