[: I see you know you can do this. You’ve seen it done, :] Allegheny wheedled. [: There’s no time to waste! :]
There was no equivalent of “taking a deep breath” when Ash was in his water-walking state. His changed skin glistened, allowing him to move through water with minimum friction. Its unique surface allowed him not only to extract oxygen from water, it also let him read dissolved minerals and potential pollutant levels.
He just shut his eyes and took a moment to center himself.
He imagined a new shape, a changed physical shape – it was possible, he’d seen it done. If he was lucky, it would even run in the family.
He pulled power from Allegheny, a gift freely given for a new skill cheerfully encouraged – and pushed it out his fingers and toes.
He visualized.
Long, graceful shapes. Longer bones, thin, skin-based membranes shimmering in the light. Fast, tireless muscles.
The pain that accompanied the transformation made him gasp. Grateful for the sealed throat flap to his lungs, he merely spat the too-cold water out of his mouth, and wiggled his newly acquired fins.
Quickly, strictly as a quality control measure, Ash looked them over. Yes, so far so good. The metatarsals of his feet were now extended into long, blade-like bones and were connected with white, almost translucent skin. Each nail was a sharp, wicked thorn now and Ash thrilled at his new, faster, more weaponized feet.
The metacarpals of his fingers elongated a lot less, and he retained his opposable thumb. The nails were wicked claws now, unusual for an aqueous creature but just right for a man who was on a mission to save his lover from a watery grave.
Ash kicked out. Cooper’s power signature was a vivid beacon in the icy lake, yet even now it began to cool from the orange-hot lava tones to a dark-red ember that threatened to go out.
Water extinguished fire. Unless that fire was an underwater volcano, like in Iceland – but that was such a rarity, Ash seriously doubted Cooper was in any shape to pull a trick like that right now.
[: Hurry. :] The voice wasn’t that of Allegheny. He heard a woman, one with a strong and commanding voice that echoed through ageless eons of history. Ash didn’t know what gave him that idea – he only knew that he’d obey this voice.
He kicked even harder.
Zooming through water fast, his newly formed feet began to tire. His thighs, his hips, his back – they all burned with exertion. Only his arms extended by his body, straight and hydrodynamic, letting him steer with the slightest twitch of his fish-fin fingers.
Ahead of him, under a crack in the ice, floated the rapidly cooling body of Cooper Anneveinen.
THE CHANT IN Cooper’s mind went on and on, past his loss of consciousness. [: Help me help me help me. Thank you thank you thank you. :]
He was, ever so slightly, aware of drowning. The pain in his lungs twisted him sideways, and the icy bite of the lake water scorched his lungs from within. He knew he should be trying to move, to kick up and get to that crack in the ice – always up, always toward the light that shone like a beacon of hope.
And he also knew, in his imperfect awareness so nigh to death, that he couldn’t.
The chant in his head had petered out, ending in a solitary coda: [: Ash... :]
SEEING ENERGY PATTERNS wasn’t Ash’s greatest strength, but even he could discern the darkening flicker of Cooper’s power signature. With a last burst of power granted him by his new water-walking form, Ash surged forth and grabbed Cooper by his shoulders.
Cooper’s hair, bound into his pony tail, stayed out of his face enough for Ash to see the lack of tone in his cheeks. His jaw loosened, lolling open just as Cooper’s soul began to take its leave.
Driven by desperate need, Ash did the only thing he could.
He kissed him.
Latching his own lips to the stiff, blue ones of Cooper’s dying body, Ash claimed his soul and let it enter his mouth. Now the power signature he used to feel from across town resided within him, humming at that special resonant frequency the two men had always shared by sheer coincidence.
He could’ve swallowed it. Absorbed it. That is why his kind had been hunted as warlocks and witches in the olden days, after all – they had helped drowning swimmers and capsized fishermen out of their misery, feeding on their soul’s power.
It had been a terrible thing to do, for a soul thus consumed was denied the opportunity for a new rebirth. It was simply... used up. Digested like so much food.
Yet Ash had seen his young student do just such a thing in Prague, and she had saved a drowning man by taking his soul and then giving it back. If he could get Cooper from under this horrid ice and onto dry land ever again, he would do the same.
Cooper’s soul in his mouth and Cooper’s body hugged against his chest, Ash kicked hard, heading for the shallows. Their swimming hole and the ladder leading to freedom were there, and he had no time to waste. Cooper had distracted that horrid creature just in time.
A tug of guilt reminded Ash that he had left Cooper’s uncle Greg behind. His guide, a man that he had hoped would become his teacher, was back in the darkness and likely still in that state of trance induced by the fish. He should’ve at least shaken him awake – but had he taken the time to do that, Cooper’s soul would’ve already left his body.
No, it had been a choice. In Ash’s eyes, Cooper took precedence.
Ash put guilt on hold. He’d worry about abandoning Greg Nightwind later. For now, he made use of every bit of his single-minded focus, and applied it to swimming to an opening in the ice as fast as he could.
Rocks passed under him like silty, darkened shadows, and Ash realized the water had become less deep.
They were close.
He looked up, scanning the uneven underside of the ice sheet until he found a place lit up by the the late afternoon’s sun to the right and a little to the back.
He had overshot, and had to backtrack.
Ash turned like a fish, aided by his new foot fins, and headed for the opening. Silently, covertly, he tried to sneak toward the only available exit without attracting the lake spirit’s attention, when he recalled Cooper’s silly chant.
It had been much like Feather’s chant. Mollifying. Confusing. Sleep-inducing.
[: Ice ice baby. Ice ice baby. :] Stressed to the max, he couldn’t think of anything else. He had heard to song on the old van’s radio often enough, and now the hypnotic refrain came to him as the only set of words that wouldn’t give his location or his plan away. [: Ice ice baby. Ice ice baby. :]
The rungs of the wooden ladder came into view, and soon Ash was in the light, under the open water where he and Greg had descended what must have been hours ago.
Climbing with fins on his hands and feet was a right bitch, but he feared that changing form while holding Cooper’s soul in his mouth would force him to absorb it, thus spelling Cooper’s eternal death.
He’d rather die himself, and a mangled appendage was nothing in comparison.
He climbed with one hand, holding onto Cooper’s ponytail with the other. He saw no other way but pull Cooper out of the water by his hair.
“Here, son,” Nikko Anneveinen appeared on the ice surface above him. As their eyes met, Ash saw his shock at the state of his hands. His... fins, the ones that ended in wicked claws. He also saw the utter sadness in both Nikko and Feather’s faces as they hauled Cooper’s body onto a waiting blanket.
They didn’t feel Cooper’s power signature anymore, and they had not scanned Ash’s yet, or else they would’ve been in for a different level of shock.
Slowly, laboriously, Ash hauled himself up the ladder and flopped onto the ice with the grace of a beached whale. The wind picked up, and the air was now colder than the water below. He knew he’d freeze, but before he did, he was going to pass Cooper his soul back.
As Cooper’s father grabbed one end of the blanket and Feather took hold of the other, ready to lift his body and carry it off, Ash launched himself at Cooper’s form, ripp
ing the blanket out of their hands again.
They all fell onto the hard ice, Ash keeping his lips shut against the shock to keep Cooper’s soul from escaping.
“What are you doing, Cooper? Oh my heavens. Your feet! Did he do that to you?” Nikko had come to his own mistaken conclusions, but then Feather recoiled and backed away from Ash. “Uncle, he... fuck! I thought those were just old wives’ tales. He absorbed him!”
Ash shook his head. With great effort, he grabbed Cooper’s hair in one finned hand, his jaw in the other, and forced his lips open. He then latched on like for CPR, and willed Cooper’s soul to enter his body again.
“He didn’t absorb him,” Nikko said from above them. “Let’s give him some power, Feather. I’ve never seen such a thing.”
Their words floated over the surface of Ash’s mind like stray dust, barely settling down. He was aware of them. They irritated him, distracted him.
And when the power came, he took all they were freely willing to give, only to pass it into Cooper and warm him up. Cooper’s nonsensical chant came to him then, and Ash repeated it, sure that nobody could hear him since they weren’t underwater anymore.
[: Thank you thank you thank you, :] Ash thought over and over again, thinking of Cooper and that wild heat source that had cracked the ice. If the thoughts elementalists produced could turn a figment of their imaginations into reality, this was no time to be thinking “Ice ice baby.” They had had enough ice to last them a lifetime. [: Thank you thank you thank you, :] he kept chanting instead, giving his resuscitation effort the last bit of his own energy while thinking of heat, and power, and life.
[: Your welcome, child, :] that woman’s voice said again.
Then he knew no more.
CHAPTER 10
JARED
Jared took a deep breath, then another. He resolved not to panic, knowing that hand-wringing and needless worries wouldn’t change anything in the outside world. Applying this knowledge to his real mental state was harder said than done.
“What’s wrong?” Ameru-san appeared by his side.
He told her.
“Well, he isn’t dead yet,” she said with certitude he wished he had himself. “If he were, you’d see him appear here, with the rest of us. He is, after all, the blade’s Wielder.”
There was that. If Cooper died, this is where he would end up. “And how about Ash?” Jared asked.
“The one with all that water?” Ameru-san’s disdainful tone seemed mostly habitual, because she didn’t go off on a tirade against Ash’s detrimental effect on the blade’s integrity. “He passed the blade on to Cooper, so he should stay outside, I think. But then again, I’ve never asked all these other Wielders whether they had all died with the sword in their possession, or whether any of them had sold it. Or, more likely, had given it to their nearest male relative. That was the way, back in Japan. Or, had it stolen! Swords were even traded, or stripped off dead bodies. All these all wielders you see here? All of them got the blade one way or another. And we will never know how. They aren’t required to talk about it.”
“So Cooper didn’t drown,” Jared said, steering the conversation back on track. He didn’t give a hoot about the other Wielders.
Ameru-san touched his arm gently. “I hate to break it to you, but he still might. Just be realistic. Hope is good, but false hope robs you of seeing other possibilities. And if he dies, he’ll be here with you.”
Jared pushed the attractiveness of the prospect of Cooper joining him with a measure of guilt.
He had been thinking the same thing.
He liked Ameru-san, and now he could meet the other wielders, but only as long as she was willing to translate. And as long as they wanted to talk to him.
He missed Cooper, and he suddenly felt terribly alone.
ASH AND COOPER
Cooper cracked his eyes open. Firelight danced against the walls of their gher, and grandma Olga slouched in a pile of pillows on the cot across the circular space as though it had been set up especially for her.
His mother sat next to her. This came as a surprise, because Annabelle Anneveinen was prone to excitability – grandma’s words – and tended to meddle where no meddling was necessary. Whatever happened must’ve been serious enough to allow her to get involved.
A terrible thought crossed his mind. “Ash?” he croaked.
The two women turned his way. “Cooper, darling!” Annabelle sprang up from the cot and flounced her way over in her customary long, flowing robes which tempted the fire burning in the metal brazier. She looked older than he remembered, with more gray in her blonde hair and more worry lines around her mouth.
If temperament was an indication of a familial relationship, Cooper would’ve never guessed that the two women were mother and daughter. The physical resemblance was unmistakable, however, and so was their shared talent. His grandmother was a mistress of Foresight.
His mother could ride the waves of time and weave its strands to change events almost as well as grandma Olga could, but the word was that she lacked the restraint needed for such delicate operations.
Nobody wanted an elementalist prone to drama meddling with the structure of time-space and needlessly altering the natural flow of events. It occurred to him that, in her own way, his mother must’ve felt as isolated as Cooper had in his youth. He had been kept out of the way due to his zero power signature. She was being kept in the dark as a damage control measure. With a pang of unexpected sympathy, Cooper gave her a reassuring smile before he locked gazes with grandma Olga. “Is Ash okay?”
Olga nodded, and quietly pointed to Ash’s cot.
His mother looked like she wanted to quiz him, but Cooper decided he wasn’t up to any kind of a serious conversation. He cut her off as she was taking a deep breath. “Shh. Don’t wake him. This was quite a day, right?”
“Quite a day?” He loved his mother dearly, but she seriously lacked volume control. “You mean two days! You slept for over forty-eight –”
“Shh. Mom!” Cooper glared at her. “Don’t wake him up.” If he himself had taken over two days to recharge, then being woken up by Cooper’s mother was the last thing Ash needed.
Grandma Olga rose from the cot, and walked over. “Annabelle, the boy has a point.” She placed a calming hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “And look, he’s back in the land of the living again. He’s fine. Maybe you could go and eat something?” Feeding people was an Old World attribute, and grandma Olga excelled at pushing food at her loved ones while still remaining trim herself.
“My son was dead, mother. Dead! And now he’s back and I just want to talk to him a little. Mother’s prerogative!”
But Cooper didn’t want to talk. “First I’ll go pee, then I’ll drink some water. Then I’ll go back to bed with Ash – and I’d like some privacy.” He shrugged his parka over the long underwear that didn’t belong to him, slid into his boots, and traipsed outside.
The cold hair hit him like a hammer, dry and hard and unpleasantly familiar. If the lake spirit was such a jerk, why did his people choose to hang out by the lake? It wasn’t for the swimming, and it wasn’t for the fish. It could’ve been for the ley lines that were surely running under the area, though.
Cooper reached out with his mind. A swift and crushing headache hit him as hard as the wind itself. He retracted his earth sense, took care to ground and center, and wobbled on to do his need. By the time he came back, his mother was gone. Only grandma Olga guarded the sleeping Ash.
“I’m fine, Grandma,” he said. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I was just making sure you two aren’t disturbed. And we were all naturally worried.” She pushed a jug of hot, maple-syrup flavored lemonade and a bottle of reishi tincture his way. “Dose yourself up. How’s your headache?”
“Bad,” he admitted. “I tried to reach out. Big mistake.”
She smiled. “Your young man over there saved your life as surely as you saved his. We’ll have to have a conversation abo
ut what happened.” When she saw his alarmed expression, she laughed quietly. “Not now, don’t worry. Later, when you feel like it, and after he wakes up. There are two sides to this story at the very least.”
Cooper glanced at the pale face peeking out of blankets and furs. “Will he be okay?”
“Yes.” She sounded quite certain.
“You peeked, didn’t you?”
“I did,” she admitted. “I only knew that you needed each other. You two will always need each other, I expect. Even after you’re dead and buried.” She got up, not bothering to elucidate her cryptic statement.
“Then maybe I should marry him,” Cooper teased in an effort to get a rise out of her. To his surprise, she only nodded.
“In due time. Not too soon, and not too late. You’ll know when the time is right.”
“Did you check to see when he’ll wake up?”
Olga shook her head. “I don’t misuse my gift to micro-manage. You know that, Cooper.” She stepped up to him, beckoned him to stoop, and kissed his cheek. “I love you, my unpredictable earth-child. Just trust your instincts and both of you will be well again.”
Once she left, Cooper parsed her statement for a bit. She had just called him an earth-child, and she wasn’t the only one who had done so of late. That, in itself, was interesting, except he wasn’t sure where he had heard it first, or who had said it while he had been underwater.
Even though he didn’t recall everything, he remembered floating through the water in a bubble of comforting heat, he recalled the Moho down under and the amazing, lava-powered presence he resolved to visit again.
Most of all, however, he remembered drowning, and the utter horror of his knowledge that he wasn’t able to reach Ash in time.
He couldn’t help him.
He couldn’t save him.
The feeling of abject failure hurt worse than any physical injury. After Cooper chased the bitter reishi mushroom tincture with grandma’s lemonade, he dug under all those blankets and furs until he found Ash to hug and hold tight. As he drifted off to sleep again, he wondered who had rescued Ash, and how come he himself wasn’t dead anymore.
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