SONG of EMBER

46

STONE AND SALT

🙜

The dreadful sameness made it impossible to track the passing time, but Ember thought he had been searching for nearly two hours without sign of the sirena. The whirl of dust was harrowing, but he knew he could reach the end of the tunnel. He had seen the map, roughed out the distance.

Yet for the ancient river folk, it must have been a slow and agonizing death.

And for Ky...

He stumbled along half-blinded, pressing his tattered shirt over his face and praying that her thick mess of black hair would be easy to spot against the pale stone. He had begun to suspect that she had withered away to dust, but he couldn't keep going indefinitely.

Ember stumbled toward the edge of the path, reaching for the wall and leaning down to catch his breath.

He tripped over something.

Something soft.

A curled figure blanketed by white powder, almost entirely obscured from view. Bleached, broken ribs jutted toward the unseen sky like skeletal fingers, poor shelter from the windstorm, but the sirena huddled between the bones and the stone wall. Blistered hands covered her nose and her eyes were tightly shut.

“Ky!” he cried hoarsely.

She hunched her shoulders, lashes fluttering. One hand twitched toward the sound of his voice, and he glimpsed a trickle of dried blood upon her chin.

Ember kicked a few protruding ribs out of the way, which shattered to pieces, and dropped to his knees on the stone. Ky squinted up with one swollen eye, reaching for his face.

He bent down to embrace her—and thin fingers latched around his throat.

Ember choked and grabbed her wrist as claws pricked the cords of his neck; she whimpered softly, and her swollen tongue flashed out.

He held his breath, every fiber of his being frightfully awake. She didn’t see him—couldn’t see him. She heard the song of water. The water trapped in his flesh, the liquid within his veins. His heart battered his ribs, quickened by the closeness of death.

If she wished to tear out his throat, to unleash that flood of life, she could. He saw it glimmering in her coal-black eye—pain, despair, a hopeless desperation—and he was at once petrified and mesmerized by it.

Ky squinched open the other eye and swallowed, grasp loosening.

“Ky,” he coughed, “please…”

Whatever light was left behind her eyes faded as they wandered up to meet with his, and then she shut them again. Her hand dropped to the stone floor, clattering against a fragment of bone, and her dry lungs rattled.

Each breath came slower than the last, until he feared she would give up altogether.

In that moment, though perhaps his ears were ringing from the wind or his pounding pulse, Ember thought he heard an echo like a far-off bell. Stifled memories returned to him: the old death-knell tolling through the valley, cheerlessly summoning the townsfolk to another woodland burial.

His eyes stung, tears snatched away by the wailing winds…

Then he angrily scrubbed at his face, dust gritting between his teeth.

No. Not again. I’m not a child, anymore.

He would not permit the only friend he had left to be ripped from his arms like harvest chaff in the wind. Not like this—not ever. Ember lowered himself until their noses brushed, until he could smell the fear and decay festering beneath her floral musk.

Then he tipped her head back, and spat three times into her mouth.

Ky gasped.

The death rattle eased.

Ember the simple son of a fisherman, who lived all alone on the riverbank without a care to trouble him, would never have done such a thing—never thought to do it—but Ember the fledgling warrior, chosen companion to Ky of Clan Veli, would have spilled his own blood to sustain her.

Right now he needed that blood in his body—to carry them both through this nightmare.

He slipped his arms about her, one around her shoulders and the other beneath the crook of her knees, and staggered to his feet, shuffling away from the wall; bone-shards crunched and scraped behind him.

Hefting her until he was reasonably assured of his grip, he set off at the quickest pace he could manage, and Ky’s hand curled into the folds of his shirt.

“Come on, then,” grunted Ember, frustrated by how heavy she felt.

Her only reply was a gentle moan.

Every twenty paces he paused and knelt on the ground; her lips would part in a wordless plea, and he spat upon her tongue. If he had any spittle left in his mouth, he briskly rubbed it into the worst cracks in her skin and scooped her up again before trotting along the corridor. He could not dwell upon his present reality—that he truly traversed a windswept hall of bones, carrying one of the river folk, who withered away in his arms—for when he did, he felt as close as he ever had to madness.

Madness closed in all about them: the wind cackled with it, dust danced in a maddening storm, and the dry stone madly cracked and crunched beneath his shoes.

The only thing which kept Ember from succumbing to that madness was the strange ritual that he performed every twenty paces without fail, and an acute awareness that every moment lost to the blistering heat brought Ky closer to death…

If he failed her, if she died, he surely would go mad.

Ky pressed her nose into his shoulder, grasping a fistful of his ragged shirt as if it were the final thread connecting her to the temporal world. He briefly considered dropping the leather pack—even the slightest lessening of his burden would make it easier to press on—but he would have to set Ky down to do it, and that would cost him several seconds.

Shrugging out of the straps, a few seconds more.

Fumbling to unfasten the empty water flask, which may yet save their lives—another few.

No less than five seconds to refasten it to his belt.

It had come down to the moment.

Not minutes—nor hours—but the space of time between one breath and the next, and every misstep could etch the sirena’s fate in stone. The pounding of his feet on the baked rock and his heart against his chest reduced all conscious thought to another simple ritual: Don’t let her die. Don’t let her die. Not here. Not now. Don’t let her die.

After an eternity of mindless forward motion, the yowling wind faded to a whisper and the storm of dust settled around his feet, but Ember could run no further. He could barely walk; Ky had grown so heavy in his arms, and he had put her down and picked her up again so often, that it was all he could do to keep hold of her and stagger along one step at a time.

His mouth was drying out and his own breath wheezed. Ky’s hand began to loosen on his shirt, and her occasional coughing fits had ceased, as if she no longer had the strength to expel the dust from her lungs.

Ember winced at the thought of what was soon to come: if he spilled too much of his own blood, he would no longer be able to walk at all… not enough, and Ky would wither.

Such were the thoughts which plagued him when he first saw the light.

It was pale, distinct from the ambient glow of the tunnel. To Ember it appeared as a glimmer of hope. As they drew closer he noticed an accompanying light. Then three, then four. He tried to quicken his pace, fumbled, and nearly dropped Ky altogether.

Several lanterns dangled from the low ceiling before him, casting wrought patterns on the dusty floor. They were comprised not of flame but of large gemstones. These stones were not from the tree, or else had been altered with magic.

The lanterns illuminated a circular room bordered by open archways, and the hall continued on the opposite side. A map had been carved into the tiled floor, ornate runes glowing under the gemstones—he recognized a few from the map he carried, but didn’t stop to investigate.

The echoes of the wind had died down so that he could hear his own shuffling footsteps and ragged breaths again. If anything which meant them harm was lurking about these corridors, it would know exactly where to find them... but something about the tunnel filled Ember with a deep sense of loneliness.

He pressed Ky’s limp body more tightly to himself and stumbled past the darkened archways, trying not to glance inside as they passed, until at last he came to a simple stone door. It reminded him of the entrance to the oracle's sanctuary.

A single skeleton sprawled before it, one hand stretched above its fanged skull, bony fingertips reaching in vain.

"Open!" Ember shouted, instantly overwhelmed by a barrage of rasping coughs; Ky didn't even flinch.

The door remained stationary for a few breathless seconds, and then a low, raspy groan reverberated in the hall. It swung slowly inward, a cloud of dust rolling into the yawning void, and Ember squeezed through, wincing as the sirena’s dangling legs scraped against stone.

The space was pitch black, meager light from the corridor outside falling on slate-grey tiles. Many of the flat stones were covered in tiny whitish crystals, and the air inside touched his skin with a welcome coolness, clean and crisp.

As soon as he stepped into the shadows, the door grated back in the opposite direction.

"No, no—wait—!"

Thud.

A faint tinkling echoed in the room, powdery rock dusting his shoulders. Darkness and the soft scents of salt and wet rock enveloped them. Stagnant tranquility dampened the air, and the sudden quiet was disorienting; each movement echoed more loudly than it should.

Mumbling whatever obscenities appeared in the fog of his mind, Ember set Ky's body upon the stones and crouched beside her, holding a hand where he thought her face should be.

Nothing.

Then a faint stirring of air against his palm.

Still alive.

Ember put a hand on his belt, feeling for the stone-light in the darkness. He held it up in front of his nose and then closed his fist around it, fingers trembling. It glowed too dimly to be of any use, and Ky could not make it shine again.

Cursing, he abandoned the dried tree-sap and lunged forward on his stomach, flailing with one arm. A slimy shelf dropped off beneath his hand and he encountered a cool splash.

"Ah! Aha!" He tried to shout, but it came out as a breathless whisper—his throat was utterly parched. "Water!"

Panting with effort, he grasped the sirena under the arms and dragged her across the salty stone toward the pool. Something wet his fingers, startling him—he hesitated, inspecting the dampness: open sores oozed along the seams of her jerkin, where the stiff leather had chafed away at her skin. Even now, the worn edges were partially stuck to the congealing fluids.

Maker!

Ember leaned forward, scraping his elbow, and sloshed palmfuls of water over her face and arms. Then he fumbled with the laces in the pitch dark. If he'd had any breath for cursing he would have employed every oath he knew.

Nothing for it, then.

Taking a deep breath, he gripped each side of the jerkin and yanked. Worn laces gave with a series of muffled pops, and he slipped the leather over her arms.

Blood coated his hands.

Her blood.

He couldn't see it, but he could smell it—a thick, choking, metallic fragrance, like newly whet steel resting on a bed of crushed petals.

Her siren body was scabbed and scaled, yet still strangely soft beneath his hands. A few short hours ago he wouldn't have dared touch Ky without her initiation—but responsibility overwhelmed curiosity, dull panic numbed embarrassment, and if he was blushing he had no sense left in his wind-blasted face to feel it.

The trousers were somewhat easier to remove, for they had been too big to begin with and Ky had cinched them up with a bit of slender rope. A few quick tugs freed her of the human garment, and Ember shifted her gangly limbs from the ledge into the water with a soft splash—each awkward movement expended strength he didn't have, and each time her fragile form scraped against the stone his heart accused him bitterly.

I'm sorry.

If he could, he would have told her so.

Sorry for what, he did not know. Perhaps for failing to stop the spells. Or that he was not adept in magic, as she was, and could not heal her wounds. For agreeing to leave the garden in the first place. That he had all but destroyed her simple clothes. For everything beyond his control, which had so cruelly bent the whims of fate toward her present wretchedness.

Instead, he held Ky's head above the surface with one hand, elbows braced on the ledge, and lifted a palmful of salty water to his mouth. It wet his lips—burned his parched tongue—and he dared try a single swallow.

A wave of nausea engulfed him and he spat it back out at once, spluttering until his stomach settled.

Trembling with frustration and fatigue, he ladled it over Ky's face and tried hard not to think of water, nor listen to the sound of water, nor be swayed by the touch of water. The cuts on his knuckles stung, but he hardly noticed.

When her skin felt smooth and no more flakes peeled off beneath his fingers, Ember rested his face on cold crystallized stone and indulged in the longest sigh of his life. Then he slipped the crook of his elbow beneath Ky's chin and hugged her head close to his; he hoped that would keep her from going under, should he lose consciousness. Even if she could breathe beneath the surface, he might not be able to find her again if she sank.

A layer of slime had already begun to coat the sirena's body, thicker—like gelatin—over the sores, and the blackness pressed around them in a blanket of safety. The only sounds were water plinking deeper in the cavern and the gentle lapping of the bath around the stone ledges, tormenting him with memories of fresh mountain streams.

We're alright, Ky… I'm still here…

But the words never made it past his tongue, and from that moment on he could not tell whether he was lying awake in a pitch black room made of stone and salt, or trapped in the hollow silence of a dream.