As the sun rose in the sky, the trio remained silent, picking their way along the pieces of sturdier land. Gradually, the travelers moved west, their trajectory guided by the disappearing ground.
“We will come to sand soon.” Thorn finally called over his shoulder.
To the south, the girls could see that the reeds and grass disappeared quickly, about a hundred lengths ahead. From there, it seemed as if ocean bounded them on all sides. Candor felt almost as if she were walking on water. The presence of the sea offered her comfort. In the distance to the east, she could see small waves crashing upon a strip of sand.
As they reached the beginning of the sands, Thorn pulled up his reins.
“Let’s stop here for a moment.” He dismounted and gestured for the girls to do the same.
They did so awkwardly, still learning the rhythm of riding another animal. Candor tried not to wince as her hips whined at her. Letti glanced questioningly at her friend; Candor had not said a word since they had departed Ank Ahela.
“I want you to check your legs.” Thorn said. He pressed his own fingers to the inside of his thighs in example. “We are going to be riding for a while, and you are unaccustomed. I do not wish to spend any more time silhouetted against the sea than we need to. Any injury would hold us here.”
“Why?” Letti asked. “Aren’t we far from anyone? It’s not as if the ghosteaters come south.”
By way of response, Thorn gazed out over the sea plains. “There are happenings I don’t understand right now, currents that are pulling ways I’ve not seen.”
Candor snorted. “More non-answers.” She muttered. “Something is afoot in the east, Letti. Something with soldiers that have made it as far as the ghosteaters. They may not make it to the sea plains, but there’s no need to test their convictions. The real question.” Candor walked around to face Thorn. “Is if we should expect trouble in Ome Chaer.”
“We’re not stopping in Ome Chaer.” Thorn said calmly. “There are too many nooks in that city for me to ensure your safety.”
“Our safety.” Candor scoffed, but she did not argue.
Letti, scowling, stamped her foot slightly. “What in the stones happened with you two?”
Thorn and Candor glanced at each other, but neither responded. Thorn looked almost guilty, Candor ashamed.
“Fine.” Letti said coolly. “You want to keep moving? I will not until you explain yourselves.” With that, she plopped herself down on the sand, crossing her arms.
She looked so ridiculous, sitting there next to her horse, that Candor cracked an unintentional smile.
“Thorn has elected not to share information that he suspects might be true and might give us some clarity into our situation.” Candor chose her words carefully. “He seems to suspect something about me, specifically, because he chose to take some of my blood. He knew that my blood would allow him to avoid the effects of the smoke.”
Letti considered for a moment. “What do you mean he took your blood?” She glanced at Thorn.
“He,” Candor choked.
“I consumed her blood.” Thorn finished. He seemed to have retracted back into himself. “I had an idea that Candor might be immune to the smoke. When she was, and when it turned out that I was not going to be able to withstand the smoke myself, I manipulated Candor into offering me her blood.”
Letti looked horrified. “Why?”
“So that I would be able to keep my head and protect you.” Thorn said flatly.
“Why did you think I would be immune to the smoke?” Candor finally asked the question that had plagued her since the first moment his tongue had touched her wrist.
“I will not answer that.” Thorn remained stoic. “It is not my place.”
“And this, Letti, is why I have ceased my incessant questioning.” Candor burst, exasperated. “What good will it do?”
“Why do you think you have the right to everything in my head in the first place?” Thorn’s composure finally broke. “We are travelling companions. You should not have trusted me in the first place. Perhaps I was the monster that destroyed your village.”
Unwilling to entertain this, Candor shrank into herself, but remained defiant. “Then you could have killed us at any point along the Great Stone Way.”
“Or perhaps I am waiting to deliver you to something or someone and I need you alive.” Thorn retorted.
“Then why take my blood?”
“Then why indeed.” A look of triumph passed across Thorn’s face. “I do not wish to hurt you, Candor. I made an error in judgment, and I am unwilling to make another. I think to share with you my suspicions would be just that, an error from which we cannot return.”
Breathing hard, Thorn fell silent, and Candor held her tongue, wary. She desperately wanted to believe Thorn was telling the truth. She had felt his oath through her bones. Byt then he’d tried to attack her once more… She didn’t know what to think, but above all, candor she did not appreciate being left in the dark, not after…
“Candor.” Letti stood, brushing damp sand from her trousers. “Do not cast your anger at Thorn when it is intended for Lola and Mo.”
Candor broke. Her chest ached with the spoken truth she had not deigned to examine. Her dearth of knowledge, her feeling of helplessness was not to be laid at Thorn’s feet.
Unable to stem the tears that streamed down her face, Candor shoved off Letti’s hand and mounted. “I want to ride.” She said thickly.
Neither Thorn nor Letti argued, and the three set off along the sea plains once more.
Perhaps half a span across, the bar of sand seemed to stretch southward forever. To their west, the sea blinked and swelled, breaking at the edge of the white sand. To their east the sea also stretched, but it was a bounded sea. Candor guided her horse to the edge of the spit to examine the plains. Less than a length under the surface of the water, bone-white structures grew together, winding in such foreign shapes Candor gasped.
“What’s,” Candor cleared her throat and asked, still rather formally, “What’s this?”
Thorn and Letti glanced over. Trotting to Candor, Thorn peered at the underwater garden. “This is coral.” He explained. “There is an entire world underneath the water here. They grow up from the ocean floor. They go on for spans and spans.”
Candor could not tear her eyes from the forms. She had never swum far or deep enough into the sea near the village to know if coral grew there as well.
“It’s beautiful.” Candor whispered.
“It’s dead.” Thorn replied harshly. “It was once every color you could imagine. Each piece a rainbow of life and purity.”
“What happened?” Letti asked.
“Humans.” Thorn snorted. “When Icaria came into time, wars and conflict broke the land. The changing of the desert, the refuse of the city, the absence of the elves who took care of it… It died.” Thorn shook his head. Candor watched that tree-aged sadness crawl across his face again. “Perhaps there is some color left at the bottom of the reef. But I doubt it. All that is left here are memories. Memories and bones.” Thorn turned his horse away from the sea plains and trotted towards the open ocean.
“He’s never hopeful, is he?” Letti muttered.
“No.” Candor did not tear her gaze from the coral. “I want to swim in them.”
“What?” Letti’s voice sounded shrill. “Just because they are dead, doesn’t mean everything that lives here is.”
“While true, it also does not mean anything that lives here is malicious.” Candor finally lifted her gaze. “When we stop tonight, I will swim.”
Letti sucked in her breath and guided her horse to follow Thorn across the beach. Reluctantly, Candor followed, taking solace in the crashing of the waves, and the familiar smell of salt and deep water.
That evening, Thorn pulled the girls to a halt behind a crag of coral that had washed onto the beach. Pieces of it were perforated, while others stuck out like so many fans across its top. Smooth, white fingers the size of Candor’s arm rose to the sky, as if searching for moonlight. Large enough to conceal a fire, the coral bespoke the deep sorrow of their terrain. Thorn instructed the girls to find any driftwood they could, and after several walks up and down the spit, gathered enough to make a very small fire.
“How did this get here?” Candor asked.
“Storms.” Thorn shrugged. “Once they die, there’s little to hold the coral to the floor. Some of the harder storms can knock the pieces loose and deposit them wherever they want.”
“So, you’re saying that even submerged in the sea plains, there are stacks of coral that are not very stable?” Letti asked Thorn.
“Sure.” He blew on the tendril of smoke that had begun to curl in the depths of the sticks.
“See.” Letti murmured softly.
“See what?” Thorn asked.
“I am going to go swimming.” Candor announced unceremoniously. “Letti thinks it is a bad idea.”
“It is.” Thorn sat back on his heels, concerned. “Not only is Letti correct that much of the sea plains are unstable, there are also old beings that live here and have not been disturbed for many, many years.”
“Except for the storms.” Candor reminded him.
Waving his hand, Thorn said “It’s different. Storms are not alive. Anything living that invades another living thing’s space offers a change, a change that that being is drawn to. This is the most natural thing in the world. You would risk much by diving here.”
Candor, inclined to obstinacy, jutted out her chin. “Did we not meet beings in the black teeth and survive?”
“Why tempt them if we don’t have to?” Thorn eyed Candor now as if she were herself a wild animal devoid of common sense. “No beings have dived here since the elves.”
Candor, hovering between putting herself in danger out of pure spite, relented. “Fine.” She sat back against the coral. “But I will be taking a bath in the sea tonight. Though I don’t see how that is any different.”
“The sea is always moving. The sea is not still. The sea does not belong to anyone. The sea is not the same.” Thorn poked the fire and a blue flame leapt from the wood. “There.”
Candor made a face when Thorn was not looking but did not argue.
“I will tell you a story, if you like.” Thorn said quietly.
Irritated at being bribed, but intrigued nonetheless, Candor sat forward. “Go on.”
“Get some food ready, from that which the ghosteaters gave, and we shall begin.” Thorn opened his pack and searched for his own stash.
The girls did as they were told, then sat, cross legged, in the watery shadows thrown by the fire. The coral, Candor noticed, looked almost as if it were underwater once more with the curious blue-green light upon its white face.
“I will tell you about the Mers. Thorn took a bite of a ripe fruit. Juice trickled into his grey-speckled beard. “Don’t interrupt.”
~.~
In the beginning, when Anaia was alone and the land wasn’t, there was the sea. When Anaia finished creating the stars, she dove into the swells, for there were no waves yet, and found only water. So, she created the sand, and on the sand, she created coral. Sea life that could grow towards the stars so she could see them when she returned to the sky. The coral, however beautiful, could not speak, and Anaia returned, lonely. So, she created fish, and all manner of sea creatures for company, but they too could not speak. So Anaia returned to the stars to think. Once more she returned to the sea, and swimming between the coral, she devised the Merlaith. The Merlaith, or the Mers, would look like her on the top half, but fish on the bottom, so they could swim easily between the coral and the other creatures.
Because Anaia knew what it was to be lonely, she did not create one Mer at first, she created two. Osterlei and A’Dromeda and they were happy. Soon, they were blessed with family, and instead of remaining friends with Anaia, who would visit, they grew to worship her in gratitude.
The Mers took care of the coral and grew so plentiful that they inhabited the whole sea. Anaia, no longer needed in the ocean, remained in the sky, lonely once more.
Finally, Anaia grew lonely enough, she decided to try her hand at creation again. From the depths of the sea, Anaia pulled sand and earth and created an island, disturbing the Mers.
“Why Anaia?’ They cried, ‘Why did you kill our loved ones?”
Anaia tried to explain that she wanted a companion like they had, she wanted a family. But the Mers, caught in their own sorrow, submerged themselves into their coral, some going so dark as to become obsessed with killing any life that grew upon the island that Anaia created. They became known as Ix Anterlaith and their tails grew black. The other Mers returned to life as they knew it, tending their coral, building their homes, and worshipping Anaia, though with a new sense of sorrow.
On Icaria, for that was the land Anaia created, she grew mountains, plains, rivers. Out of the energy she spent grew the Fae, spun to life between the crags of the mountains and out of the swamps near the mouths of the rivers. Out of time grew the elves, the pixies, the gnomes, the centaurs, and all the rest. In one form or another, they all resembled her. Still, they saw her as a Goddess, not a companion, her power too great to grow familiar. So Anaia grew trees, and from the largest oak that grew, Anaia cut out a being. She nursed him with water from the rivers, and lengthened his muscles with earth from the mountains, and he grew large and strong, and he was different from the Mers or the Fae. His name was Winden. He loved Anaia so greatly, that she forgot the Fae and the Mers and wandered the space between the sky and the sea with him for many long moments. Time did not exist then, and the Fae and the Mers flourished.
One morning, in the deep twilight that existed, for there was no day and no night then, Winden told Anaia he wanted a child. He wanted to become one with her and bring another being like him into the universe.
Unsure, but willing to give Winden whatever he wished, Anaia agreed. Anaia grew round and heavy, until one day, she collapsed in the center of Icaria and gave birth to not one but two babies. As Winded pulled Lettishae and Sakjerst from Anaia’s body, he recognized that something was terribly wrong. Anaia did not stop bleeding. She bled and bled until the ocean began to fill with her blood, and she grew pale. She turned to Winden and asked as her dying wish to hold her children.
Maddened with grief and desperate, Winden instead placed the children on the ground and lifted Anaia back to the heavens with all his strength. There, he knew, she would stay alive for the stars would give her strength. He also knew that offering her life in this way would never allow her to return to earth. Screaming, Anaia returned through the clouds to her first place among the stars, capable of seeing Winden, Lettishae, and Sakjerst from the sky, but unable to touch them.
Devastated and guilt ridden, Winden tried to care for the Twins as much as he could, but soon he collapsed of a broken heart, and slept in the heart of the mountains. This left the Twins to their own devices, and soon they discovered how to create, just like Anaia.
In the swamps near the trees that Anaia grew to create Winden, Lettishae and Sakjerst each created their own beings. Lettishae created two humans, and Sakjerst created trees with the gift of thought, a gift to his father.
Without Anaia and Winden, the land began to change. No longer were the Mers as powerful, and no longer was the air as sweet. Darkness began to creep across the land, slowly at first, and in the actions of those who had been created with such loving intentions.
The humans left after evil befell them, and Lettishae grew sorrowful, wondering if it were she who had cause the land to begin to hurt. Both she and Sakjerst could feel it; they grew restless in the endless shadows.
After a time, Anaia called softly to Lettishae. Lettishae turned her face to the stars and wept. Anaia wept too and called to Lettishae. “Your humans are lost, my daughter. They need a guide.”
And so they were, and so they did. Without the moon and with only stars that never moved, the humans had grown lost on the seas with no tides. Lettishae knew what she had to do. She called to Sakjerst, who had gone to try to wake Winden, but to no avail.
“Sakjerst, my brother, I need you to do something for me, with me.” Lettishae explained her plan. With a day and a night and a sun and a moon, her precious humans would be able to find their way home.
Sakjerst agreed, and they returned to their sleeping father, climbing onto his back, the highest part of Icaria, for he had grown into the eastern mountains. They raised their hands to the sky and Anaia plucked one, and then the other, slinging them between the stars. Sakjerst became the sun, golden-haired and dark, he offered his precious trees the gift of golden light. Lettishae, silver-haired and pale, lit up the night, offering her humans tides to draw them home and a point on the horizon against which to navigate.
Once every thirty days or so, they reunited with a dark night and a slow dawn, and Anaia grew to know her children. Finally, as time had begun on Icaria for the day had come into existence, the humans returned to the west coast, and from there, they moved through the land, generally wreaking havoc and developing as they pleased. The land grew polluted, as did the waters, and the Mers, who never seemed to be enough for the Gods, grew sick. As their coral died, so too did they stay near the bottom of the ocean, and so too did they die. They have not been seen since the earliest years of the human arrival.
~.~
The flames had burned out, leaving a dark, blueish glow in the embers. Candor and Letti leaned against the coral. Thorn had pulled out his pipe and blew a smoke ring.
“I did not know that history of the Twins.” Letti finally whispered, her voice like a brush of the sea. “I thought they brought humans to life together, that is why Lettishae is worshipped as the giver of all life.”
“She’s the giver of life to humans.” Thorn shrugged, but his voice was muted. The stars glimmered, reflecting in his eyes.
Unsure what to think of the story, Candor gazed out over the sea. “Are you certain they are all dead?”
Thorn adjusted his seat. “No. I’m sure of little. I think, were they still alive, they would have migrated away from this place.” Thorn’s voice grew brittle. “I would not stay near Icaria, Gods above or not. There is too much pain here, too much memory.”
Neither girl responded. Finally, Thorn grunted. “It’s late. I’ll take first watch. Letti, I’ll wake you next, Candor, you’ve got the shift into the morning.”
The girls acquiesced and laid down next to the coral statue. Thorn stood, stepping around the backside of the structure. He gazed out over the sea plains, the stars on their surface a perfect mirror image of their counterparts above.
Thorn was certain, he realized, of the extinction of the Mers. This saddened him; he wished for a time with a little more hope and a little more mystery. This land, Thorn bent and ran sand through his fingers, ached for reconciliation. Too much has been lost, Thorn drew a deep breath from his pipe. A chilled sea breeze swept around the side of the beached coral, drawing his smoke over the depths of sea skeletons. Thorn could have sworn he heard a gleeful giggle, a child’s laugh from another time.
Candor woke with a sharp shake from Letti. “Nothing seen, nothing heard.” Letti muttered before tumbling into her bedroll.
Candor stood and stretched. Letti had banked the fire, but the moon and the stars offered plenty of illumination. Candor paced for a few lengths, then, deciding she could watch for enemies and perform the Aiadar, did so, stretching and lengthening her muscles. She performed the entire dance twice, eyes and ears open. She felt her rib slide against itself and struggled to continue. She focused on nothing in particular, allowing her vision to open, to remark upon small flickers in the darkness. After her second performance, Candor unsheathed her indigo sword and held it as she danced through the darkness one last time. Her muscles ached as she plopped down on the far side of the coral, finished and exhilarated. It had been too long since they had sparred. She would make it a priority to fight tomorrow.
The sky began to lighten in the south, and Candor could feel the energy of the land begin to stir. This was her favorite moment of any day, the beginning of things. She smiled. They were closer to the Citadel than she had expected them to get, not that she would have ever mentioned such a misgiving to Letti. Nor, Candor knew, would she have allowed herself to stop for fear. But the promise of its proximity enlivened her. She jumped to her feet.
Out of the corner of her eye, Candor caught a glimpse of something. Candor couldn’t have articulated what she saw, but something had moved, just outside her vision. She stilled, eyes pasted on the north edge of the hazy mountains. There, she thought, there was a small black spot, like a liquid shadow that punctuated the early morning light. It grew slightly bigger, and Candor realized it was moving, and moving towards them.
“Thorn.” Candor moved around the northside of the coral and shook Thorn with her foot. “There’s something here.”
On his feet in a flash, Thorn peered where Candor was pointing.
“Up. Get on your horses, now.” Thorn had never sounded so frightened. Not in the Kotemor, not in the face of the ghosteater’s smoke. His voice spoke of the prey-fear that Candor experienced in the dead of night. The fear that told her to flee, to run, to escape.
Candor’s stomach dropped, and she shook Letti, grabbing her pack and untying her horse.
“Letti get up.” Thorn hissed. His eyes, Candor noticed, were wide enough she could see the whites clearly. He was terrified.
Candor glanced back toward the shapes and was alarmed to discover that there was not one, but six now, that sped towards them. Almost humanoid, they seemed to be large, impossibly black shadows.
“Let’s go.” Letti on her horse, Thorn kicked his own animal in the sides, and Candor winced. She urged hers along, easing into a gallop after Thorn. Her belly dropped and she hung onto the pommel with all her might. Her breath came in ragged puffs as she tried to settle into the gait.
Letti brought up the rear, sitting partly out of her saddle as her horse stretched its legs over the sand.
The shadows did not slow. Candor did not bother telling Thorn, her breath grew ever shorter as she fought to keep her position on the horse’s back. Over span, they ran, the trio strung out along the sand strip like so many beads along a necklace, racing up its chain. Letti’s long dark hair billowed behind her, and Candor’s white hair stuck to her face as she grew sweaty and caked with salt. The horses’ mouths grew fraught with froth, and Candor wondered how long they could run at such a tempo.
Between the ocean and the sea plains, the three travelers raced, six dark shadows in a loose point behind them. They were now close enough that Candor could see a strange sort of shimmer at the edges of their forms. The ones in the formation closest to the sea shimmered more heavily than those nearer to the point.
“Thorn.” Candor screamed. “Thorn, the sea.” Candor urged her horse to go faster and pulled up next to Thorn. He did not look at her, his face contorted with fear and determination. His gaze rested upon a large, low-slung rectangle that dotted the southern horizon.
Candor reached over, and grabbed Thorn’s reins, pulling both steeds to a stop. They panted and trembled.
“What are you doing?” Thorn yelled, but Candor paid him no mind. Jumping off her horse, she led both horses, one still ridden by Thorn, into the shallows of the sea. Letti followed. Careful to mind their footing, Candor led them as far as she deemed safe for their legs, splashing water onto their heaving sides.
The wraiths had stopped, a few lengths off the waves on the sea. With an eerie stillness that did not bespeak the shadows they resembled, they winked out of existence. Next to her, Candor heard a large splash as Thorn threw himself into the water.
Moving around the horses carefully, Candor hauled the large man out of the sea and leaned him against his horse. He trembled but seemed to have regained lucidity.
“What in the name of the Twins Thorn,” Candor asked. “Was that?”
“The wraiths.” Thorn’s face pale, he made a fist and placed it against his heart, pushing it away from his body. “The fallen witches. I’ve not seen them since the days of the mad king. They had gone.”
“Could they be something else?” Candor, satisfied that the man would not fall back into the ocean if she stepped away, reached in her soaking pack for her water and stomach. Carefully, she deposited much of her water into the skin and held it open for her horse to drink. He did so gratefully. She scratched him behind his ears and thanked him for his ride.
“Don’t do that.” Thorn muttered, tooling around his own horse. “There’s plenty of water to harvest here.”
Thorn instructed Candor to hold the stomach open near the top of the sea. Muttering and hold his hand over the skin, a stream of water looped up from the surface of the ocean and pooled in the bag. Candor quickly offered it to her horse once more, and they repeated the process for both Thorn’s horse and Letti’s.
“We’ve got to keep moving.” Thorn tugged the reins of his horse back to the dry sand. “We need to make it to the city before we stop again.”
“I thought we weren’t going to the city?” Candor tried to suppress her excitement. She was unsure why Thorn seemed so frightened. Candor had sensed no ill will from the wraiths. Pursuing them down the plains had perhaps not been an overly welcoming sign of warmth, but when they had faced them at the water’s edge, Candor was surprised to find that she did not feel the same fear she had when she had faced the monsters in the black teeth. She did not articulate any of this to Thorn, however, as she was keen to visit Ome Chaer.
“I need some real news.” Thorn explained. “And we need to be around people. The wraiths were not known for massacres. They sought their victims. We will be safe if we are in a crowd.”
“Safe from them.” Letti muttered.
“Aye.” Thorn agreed grimly. “Safe from them.”
Candor did not realize her legs were shaking until she made to mount her horse again.
“How is it,” she groused, “That we spar every day. We have hiked hundreds of span, and my legs have been bested by a gallop down the beach?”
Letti did not fare much better. Even Thorn, whose muscles bulged, winced as he returned to his saddle.
“Different muscles.” Thorn explained. “Come on.”
Groaning, Candor flipped her leg over her horse, and the three trotted south.
“How far are we from the city?” Letti asked.
“We will ride hard the rest of the day, rest for a moment at sunset to ensure our trail is clear, and water the horses and then ride through the night.” Thorn flicked his reins. “This is not a foe I can best.”
“Thorn,” Candor hesitated. “They did not feel dark. They did not feel evil.”
“They are not inherently evil.” Thorn glanced back over the beach, his eyes skipping through time as they so often did. “They are pure chaos. They were those witches who refused to work for the mad king, refused to do his bidding.” Thorn’s tone grew dark. “So, he tortured them beyond insanity. He tortured them until nothing was left of them except their majik. He tore them out of time itself.”
Candor shuddered. “How horrible.”
“They are unstable. The mad king was only able to control them because he was the one who drove them to collapse into themselves and retained their fear of pain. Once his power grew tenuous, they let loose their ire on the land, often claiming whole families at a time.”
“You said they didn’t massacre large crowds.” Letti accused.
“They don’t. These were families who had supported the king, or who had somehow contributed to their pain.”
“That doesn’t sound evil to me.” Candor raised an eyebrow. “That almost sounds reasonable.”
“They no longer recognize friend and foe. They only know life and the traces of majik. They were known to kill for no seeming purpose at all, and in the most painful, gruesome ways. I used to think they simply wished for others to hurt because they hurt.”
“That seems less than ideal.” Candor nodded, a drop of fear sliding neatly into her stomach.
“Aye.” Thorn nodded. “They are chaos and pain incarnate, and it does not bode well that they have returned. There is instability, too much instability in the land. I have been remiss in my hunt.” Thorn finished quietly, as if he were simply speaking to himself.
Candor and Letti did not reply.
“Let’s ride.” Thorn spurred his horse, more gently this time, and the three rose into a softer gallop down the spit of beach.
~.~
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