Abattoir/Part 5

How many fish, reptiles, and other creatures had swum in the swamp, bathed in it, regurgitated and excreted in it? The swamp water tasted of all of them, and Alecto fought the temptation to spit it all back out. Her throat was closing against the invasion automatically, and her toned muscles burned as they sucked up the last of the oxygen in her bloodstream and the carbon dioxide built. Part of her wanted to draw that deep breath and the oblivion that would come along; she could sense It was in the water with her, but even that didn't bother her anymore.

No.

A Sith Lord did not accept death. She did not settle meekly into a watery grave in some stinking swamp. She did not let that smug, smiling snake gloat over her failure.

Alecto's arms felt like fire as she forced them out and pushed herself deeper underwater, her head pounding. The swamp soup cloyed on her tongue and splashed against the back of her throat, unable to get past her squeezed trachea, no air rising to force it back out her teeth. She fumbled at the seaweed until she caught it with her trembling hands and pulled herself down below her ankle. Forcing her mouth to open, she took the weed between her lips and bit down. Her teeth dragged back and forth over the tough fibers, and she thought she might pull one out of her gums. Her body was preparing to open her airway, water be damned, when the weed finally parted.

Alecto swam frantically toward the surface; two meters might have been a thousand, and she was so drained that she felt she was going only centimeters at a time. She inhaled…and just at that moment, her nose and lips broke the surface. Her airway opened, and oxygen and swamp water raced each other down her throat. She retched, dog paddling helplessly and nearly sinking again; her lungs sent her into hacking coughs to expel the water, but then tried to suck down air before all the water was out.

In despair she swiped her hands outward, and the Force blew the water away from her in a wave. In the second before it splashed back she forced out a horrific, belching cough that turned to vomit; she tasted all the swamp water and most of her snake coming back up, and a bit of half-digested snake caught in what was left of her hair as the waves came back in. Flailing to keep herself afloat, she sucked down a full breath at last. Her lungs demanded another, and another; the sick smell of rot didn't even register until the eighth or ninth greedy breath.

When her arms had stopped shaking enough, she started to swim, kicking with half-numb legs. Distantly, something roared disapproval; she vaguely remembered being chased up a tree.

Her fingers clawed soil and she pulled herself forward until her hands came down on dry land—or as dry as the swamp got. As she hauled herself farther, little pricker pods lanced her palms and forearms; she gave a little cry as one needle poked into the open wound in her right palm, but kept pulling. Anything was better than drowning. She finally collapsed against the mossy bark of the willow, hugging it while her trembling legs struggled to keep her upright, coughing and burping up more spouts of swamp water until she vomited again. For all the oppressive humidity she found herself cold.

"Alecto?"

The voice was barely louder than a whisper; Alecto wondered if she was imagining it.

"Alecto?"

She wasn't, but when she tried to push herself up to a full standing position her arms shook, and when she tried to reply her voicebox seized and let out only a dry rasp.

There was still water in her ears, but the Force had its own way of listening, and it told her when the other being drew close. Wiping algae muck off her face and mouth, she rolled one shoulder into the tree trunk and rotated onto her back, hissing as her injured lower back impact the tree. She raised her arms in a boxer's stance to defend her face until Rassan picked his way through the ferns.

His eyes widened to circles. "How did you survive that?"

"I swam." Alecto's defiant tone came out a strangled croak. She looked at the swamp water, but it wasn't worth it; she could get by without talking, but not with being poisoned. She pointed at Rassan for effect. "You?"

"It seemed more interested in you than me," he explained. "So I went around."

Did these things hunt with the Force? Was that why Rassan had castigated her for unleashing Force lightning? It hardly mattered now; Alecto thought the effort to conjure up more lightning might kill her instead.

Her whole body ached, but Alecto rocked her weight off the tree, wobbling in place for a moment until she was sure she could balance. Rassan made no move to steady her, watching her with unreadable eyes. She was still dripping water, and she ran a hand through her hair to wipe it back over her skull and out of her face; as she plucked algae and regurgitated snake meat out of it, she was startled again by how short it had become.

"Let's go," she wheezed. She had no desire to move, but it would be worse to try to rest here; she had the distinct impression she would wake up to some massive reptile or a swarm of insects eating her.

As they plodded on through the swamp, water squishing in Alecto's boots, she noticed Rassan was still dry. "Is there a way through the swamp that doesn't involve swimming again?"

"Let me guess—a way that allows you to descend?" Alecto restrained herself from matching the distaste in his tone, and after a moment the Anzat shook his head. "Come."

Clouds of gnats started to plague her as they picked their way through shallow bogs. Alecto almost compelled them away with the Force, but thought better of it; if she was being hunted, she needed to save her powers for something more than an annoyance. Out of the water, her pinky finger began to burn from the insect bite again, but she tried to ignore that too, even as the sensation spread down the blade of her hand. She considered asking Rassan whether anything else down here could be chewed for a bandage paste, but every time she thought of putting anything else from the swamp into her mouth she heaved.

With no sunlight reaching the Abattoir, Alecto could not say how long they walked, although the sickly humors of the swamp reduced her to a bleary plod by the time the ground grew firm beneath her feet. She climbed ten meters, dropping to her hands and knees to pull herself up with roots and vines, until she stood with Rassan looking down on a fern-covered forest some fifteen meters below. Mist hung like extra foliage in the trees branches, but through it she could see the ground plainly.

"How…" She looked back at the swamp; she could see little bubbles of muck through the coils of mist. "How is this possible?"

Rassan shrugged. "It's the Abattoir. Congratulations, you're worthy to join the Brotherhood."

"I…what?"

"Down there," he said, pointing. "That's the second level."

"That's the…only the second level?!" Alecto stared, aghast. "I've been down here for days! Weeks!"

"Shall I tell you how long I've been down here?" Rassan sneered as he pointed to a trail running off along the swamp's edge. "That's the path back to the temple, if you've regained your sanity."

Alecto narrowed her eyes, wondering, but the Force called her attention back to the sea of ferns below. A gentle breeze played through the leaves, but every once in a while she saw a tendril shiver more than the wind should have allowed. Exhaustion narrowed her perceptions closer to herself, but she forced them back out until she could feel predation and hunger down there…and the vestiges of sentience with them.

"What's down there?"

"Deadlier predators than anything you faced up here," Rassan assured her. "Nothing I care to challenge."

Alecto rolled her eyes, then looked around at the ridge. Weariness was dragging at her. "Is it safe to sleep here for a few hours?"

"It might be, under other circumstances," Rassan mused. "But the Brotherhood won't allow it."

The Anzati and their tests. She began to understand why some of them had given up without braving the Heart of the Abattoir; she would kill for a good night's sleep, and she was beginning to suspect she would have to. "What are they?"

"They're what will kill you, I expect."

"Such confidence," Alecto sneered as she looked down over the ridge for a safe landing. Still keeping a mental eye on the ground below, fatigued by near-drowning and her injuries, she could not retract her focus to her personal space before Rassan's two-handed push sent her flailing into the air and plummeting toward the ferns below, and the things they hid.