“I did wonder,” Chidi said, pulling her hand from Marisa’s grip, her pulse racing at the memory of abandonment. “Just like I remember begging you to take me with you.”
“And yet we should not have the Merrow ring with us now if I had,” said Marisa. “For just as Declan Dolan and I were meant to part ways in seeking out the other Ancient pieces, you were meant to go ashore and retrieve this ring. You to receive this gift that it might aid us all in turning back the dark tides to come, Chidi.”
Bryant sighed as he traipsed over to the nearest chair and collapsed upon it. “Well, I’ll tell you this, Bourgeois. If I heard this sorta nonsense outta just about anybody else, I’d pick them up and send ‘em on down to the funny farm. This all sounds like a bunch of hooey to me.”
Marisa smiled. “And yet you do not doubt me?”
“I don’t reckon I know much of anything anymore,” said Bryant. “But I know the name Declan Dolan, sure. Him and my partner, Edmund, ran together a long time ago during the Selkie Strife. Way I remember it, Edmund only ever had good things to say about Declan Dolan.” Bryant crossed his arms. “You said the two of you took off together and ran somewhere? All right. So, where is Declan now?”
“I know not where he is in this very moment,” said Marisa quietly. “Only that Declan Dolan will accomplish what he set out to do.”
“How?” Bryant asked. “How do you know for certain?”
Marisa took a deep breath, licking her lips before speaking. “I have seen many faces in my dreams, David Bryant. Heard many voices. And yet, as in life, some few are hallmarked among the rest. The three of you in this room share that distinction, albeit Chidi’s voice is the one I hear loudest and most often of all.”
Allambee stirred beside Chidi. “You hear my voice also?”
“I do, child,” said Marisa, her tone quivering. “Just as I have long admired your innocent and noble heart, Allambee Omondi. Aye, just as I told your mother when I came to fetch you from her to lead you onward that you might rejoin with your father.”
“Where is he now, then?” Allambee asked. “Where is my father?”
“He is now as he has been all his life, sweet child,” said Marisa. “Like so many of us, your father is lost in the waiting time . . . not a day gone by since he was taken from you without wishing he might one day hold you in his arms. To look upon your face and know you for his son.”
“Then I will see him,” Allambee asserted. “Just as you promised my mother? I will help my father to find his way again?”
Marisa beamed at him, her eyes gleaming. “Aye, Allambee Omondi. On my word, you will both meet and aid your father to find his way through the darkness that has long held him captive. Your actions and rejoining with him shall be a beacon of light to thwart off the darkness and help to save us all.” She touched him on the cheek, cheering him further before turning to face Chidi again. “And the reunion of Allambee with his father is but another reason I could not free you in Crayfish Cavern, Chidi Etienne. For as Declan Dolan and I had our own currents to follow then, I was shown the way ahead for you also. Had you not gone ashore, we should have neither the Merrow ring, nor Allambee Omondi, with us now.”
Bryant barked a laugh. “Well, I guess it seems I’m the odd man out, huh, partner?” He joked with Chidi before settling further into his chair. Bryant’s sharp eyes refocused on Marisa. “And you didn’t answer my question, Bourgeois. Not really, anyway. So, I’ll ask you again . . . where is Declan Dolan now?”
“I told you that I know not for certain where he is.”
Bryant scowled. “Don’t play word games with me, Bourgeois. You see all this other stuff, but don’t know where Dolan is? Fine. Gimme your best guess, sweetheart.”
Marisa’s gaze narrowed on him. “The last I saw of Declan Dolan, he lay chained beneath the ice, lost among the Salt mines of Røyrkval in the Ancient City of Song,” she said. “For that is where I saw both Dolans in my dreams. Both the father and the son. Each of them searching among the frigid tunnels. One desperate for escape, the other in seeking another of the five keys we require to unlock the greater mystery left to us.”
Chidi’s spirit soared at Marisa’s admission. “Lenny is alive, then?” she asked.
“Aye,” she said. “For the son of Declan Dolan is another I have long seen in my dreams. His pain and his voice nearly rivaling your own, Chidi.”
His pain? Chidi wondered. What does she mean?
Bryant spoke up before she could ask her questions. “Seems to me you got a whole lotta faces you’re seeing in them dreams of yours, Bourgeois. Just how many others you seen or heard and ain’t told us about?”
Marisa smiled in answer, but gave him nothing else in reply.
“Yeah,” said Bryant. “That’s what I thought. Might be I heard you wrong too, but it almost sounds to me like you sent Declan and his boy down to them Salt mines knowing they’d be put to work in chains.”
“Indeed, you are wrong, David Bryant,” said Marisa. “For it was not me to send Declan Dolan anywhere. I showed him the same as was shown to me . . . the truth of what occurs when the pure in heart stand by and do nothing. Why we all of must make our choices. Why everything that we all do matters. Every word. Every choice. Everything.” She looked away from Bryant, refocused on Chidi instead. “For even among those who fear they do not matter, their actions and words seemingly uncounted, even those meekest of folk must come to find the courage to act and speak up, lest the world and all those in it suffer for their silence . . .”
Chidi glanced away, her gaze falling on Allambee’s concerned expression.
Bryant scratched at his cheeks. “You say everybody’s actions and their voices matter, Bourgeois. Afraid I’m gonna have to disagree. I’ve met some real crazies in my time. The kinda folk who don’t have any problem saying what’s on their mind. It’s getting them to shut up that’s the issue.”
Marisa cast her knowing gaze on him. “And you, David? Which lot do you place yourself among?”
Bryant took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing. “Like to think I know when to keep my mouth shut and when not to . . . and I ain’t got a problem calling somebody out if and when I sense a bit of bull in the air, if that’s what you mean.”
Marisa smiled. “We are not all of us as brave as you, my friend,” she replied, not unkindly. “Some brave folk such as you are, David, aye, and Allambee Omondi too, you both have always faced your destiny and detractors willingly enough, no matter the harshness thrown before you, or the consequences to pay thereafter. Still . . . you are among the scattered few.”
And we are the many, Marisa? Chidi silently wondered on the exchange between her companions. We, the quiet ones in the corners, lurking in the shadows, hoping to go unseen and unnoticed?
To judge Bryant’s tone and expression, he remained unfazed by Marisa’s words. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Bourgeois. But, judging by the stories I heard from Edmund, it never sounded to me like Declan Dolan was the sort to shrink from anything either, let alone a duty to others.”
“No,” said Marisa. “Nor did he hesitate when making his choice to head south and leave the safer, northern Arctic route for me.”
“North?” Chidi asked. “Why would you go there?”
“To seek further answers to these cryptic five pieces of two and uncover more of the Ancient riddles,” said Marisa.
“And?” Bryant asked. “Did you find any more of them keys you’re on about?”
“No,” said Marisa. “Only more riddles to solve. Ancient words carved deep into a lost and long forgotten, icy refuge of old. A haunted place where the dead still reside, their voices whispering at me all the while to free them of the cursed mistakes of their past.”
“You understood what they were saying, then?” Chidi asked. “What these ghosts wanted?”
“No,” said Marisa. “But I felt them surrounding me all the while. In truth, I feel them still each time I think back upon the stone-etched scrawlings I found awaiting me
at the northern pole.”
“Scrawlings?” Chidi asked.
Marisa nodded. “The same jumble of symbols and marks writ across the pages of the journals I once kept. The same as I allowed your Selkie crew to take from me, Chidi. All in the hope you might decipher some bit of worthy note that I could not see. Aye, that you might piece together some words from the letters I had already transcribed.”
They were Ancient symbols! Chidi thought, reflecting back on the journals of Marisa Bourgeois they had lifted off of Zymon Gorski after the events of the Shedd Aquarium. How Lenny Dolan had asked Chidi to translate the many different languages inside to find a clue as to where Marisa might have gone next, or what she intended to find at the next location she ran to. “I never got through your journals,” Chidi said to Marisa. “I didn’t have time. Not that I think I could’ve translated all of those symbols you made anyway. To translate any kind of language, I would need some sort of base to build from. Some words or letters I already knew to work out the rest.”
“Then we are both of us fortunate to have each other now, Chidi,” said Marisa. “For you have the gift of language, and I some little knowledge of the Ancient symbols. Together, it might well be we work out some bit of further learning during our journey ahead to seek out the remaining keys awaiting us.” Marisa glanced over her shoulder, speaking up just as another in their company was about to. “And, again, I would remind you that flying will not serve our purposes, David Bryant.”
Chidi thought her weathered partner looked like a spoiled schoolboy called down by his teacher and flummoxed as to how she guessed that which he had meant to continue arguing.
Bryant crossed his arms. “Says you, Bourgeois. Sounds to me like you got this whole thing worked out to keep you and Chidi occupied along the way. Me? I can’t say as I’ll rest easy knowing them monsters are swimming out there. Hell, they might even be lurking beneath us right now, for all I know. Least if we were in the air, there’s no chance of them getting after us.”
Allambee went to the window, looking out as if he might see something there.
“There’s nothing out there, Allambee,” said Chidi. The Sancul would be too big to be swimming beneath us now, wouldn’t they? Surely, the water is too shallow this far inland . . . she wondered but did not say, not wanting to fear Allambee further as he turned back around. “There’s no monsters out there, I mean.”
Allambee frowned. “And yet you all have said this word many times since coming back,” he replied. “So, please tell me. What monsters did you see after you left me here?”
Bryant barked a laugh. “None that I want to see again, I’ll tell you that,” he said, ignoring Chidi’s disparaging look meant to shut him up. Bryant studied Marisa instead. “And I still don’t reckon I understand how you think we’re supposed to take down any one of them kraken things on our own if we chance to cross ways again with them, Bourgeois. ‘Specially not with some ring that Chidi’s wearing, or else some old word puzzles that you ladies mean to work out.”
Marisa turned to face him. “I assure you it will be no mere ring, nor puzzled piece alone to halt the Other and the storm he brings, my friend. That you do not understand such reasoning is why you are not leading us in this venture, David Bryant.”
Chidi chuckled at his silence to follow, Marisa’s reply stunning him.
“Now, come below with me, Chidi,” said Marisa, leaving the wheel behind and heading down to the cabin quarters below the captain’s deck. “You and I have much work to do . . . and precious little time.”
4
SYDNEY
Again. Sydney told herself, imagining the teachings of her former guardian and mentor, Yvla. She flicked her wrist, then pictured a violet, snaking line shot forth from her hand - a jelly whip that cracked when she called it home. But no matter how she recalled the color and sound of Yvla’s whip, Sydney’s own makeshift wand of bone and the tattered rags tied at its end gave no such signals.
Sydney had lost count of how many times she robotically practiced the maneuver with no visible result. The darkness of her prison all-consuming, Sydney also could not say how many days or nights, hours or minutes, she had spent trapped inside the oubliette.
Again . . . Sydney told herself, performing the practiced, whip-like movement once more, her hands trembling as she pictured Yvla’s continued calls. Again!
Still, there was no light shot forth from her hand to ward off the darkness.
And why should there be? Sydney knew, lowering her arm and the crude, training weapon she held. Yvla is dead . . . and everyone I love is gone, taken, or else betrayed me.
Her fingers clenched tighter at the last thought.
She pictured the king, Darius, in the above, the one her memory still named as father. Though all else was dark, Sydney perfectly remembered the image of his scorn at the appearance of her shark tail. Worse, him striking her mother, Nattie Gao, thereafter. Sydney scolded herself for ever having named Darius as her father then, even though it was only in her mind. He’s not though. She reminded herself. He’s not my dad. Not really. He’s never been your real dad.
Then who? Her conscience tormented her. If not the king, then who?
Sydney had toyed with that question too inside the oubliette. Quill, maybe? She thought, cheering at momentary idea and the evidence - the memories of how he spoke on Nattie Gao, his odd reaction when meeting her for the first time, and his sister, Yvla, being her godmother.
For every time Sydney believed in the assumption, she discounted it the next. If Quill is my real dad, then why wouldn’t he just say it? Why not tell me when I was in hiding with him and Yvla for so many days?
Sydney could make no sense of it as she used her hands to touch the sides of her tail in reminder of her Nomad origins. Though the skin felt smooth in one direction, it rubbed her fingers like sandpaper when she reversed the movement. The shark skin felt nothing like her Merrow tail. Again, Sydney frowned at what her Mako shark tail and the meaning of it had condemned her and others to suffer. She looked up to where she imagined the ceiling to be, the place where light had once existed. Where light might still exist if the giant stone were rolled away.
A little light, she prayed. Please, just let in a little light.
That too went unanswered, just as so many other prayers she had made for the same request had done also. Instead, her mind wandered to a more familiar call, the same as Sydney repeated on and on, if only to keep the memory of her former mentor alive.
Again, Sydney . . . she swore that she could hear Yvla calling to her from afar. Again.
Why? Sydney wondered, allowing herself to sink nearly all the way to the stony bottom of her cell. What’s the point of training if I’m never going to escape this place, or even hold a real jelly whip?
Though she could no longer see them, she pictured the bone litters of the oubliette’s former occupants littering the floor all around her. Not for the first time, she wondered whether or not those aligned against her – the king, the Blackfin, and their minions too – if all meant to keep Sydney trapped in the oubliette forever. Lost and forgotten to darkness like all the rest whose anonymous bones were strewn across the bottom of her cell.
The idea of the former prisoner and their lingering ghosts haunted her. Aye, stupid girl. You’re no different from any who suffered here . . . those in the above will leave you to wither and starve like they did for us.
The thought made Sydney immediately kick away from descending all the way. She rocketed upward as if the phantoms in her mind meant to chase her in ascending. Sydney swam all the way to the surface, bursting above the water line.
The never-ending dark and the cold lived there also.
Despite them all, Sydney welcomed the idea of breathing air, rather than Salt. Though she marveled at her ability to breathe both above and beneath the surface, Sydney swore she would never get fully used to the feeling of swallowing water and exhaling. Not that the musty air in the above felt much better. Her lungs screamed
with the burning sensation as she choked the oxygen down in replacement of the water she had been breathing below.
This place is death. Her instincts signaled with the combined, rotted taste of mildew and Salt. Death and decay.
Sydney was already diving again when a rumble came from the ceiling. She winced as a tracing of light cut through the dark. Small and thin at first, an orange and yellow flickered hue brightened for every continued rumble.
Sydney flip-turned to locate the light’s source. She cringed at the onslaught to her vision, even as she craved more of it. Shielding her face with her trembling forearm, Sydney dared to resurface and look upward as a portion of the hulking stone ceiling was rolled away to reveal a manhole-sized escape. She had scarcely seen the two-toned faces of Orc soldiers bearing torchlights when a shadow plummeted through the hole. Sydney yelped at the splash made when a bucket landed nearby, dousing her with more water.
The Orcs laughed in the above. “Climb in, savage,” one of them jeered. “The king wishes to see you.”
Sydney sneered at the others’ continued mocking. When she did not move for the bucket and rope cast down, the Orc called to her again.
“Two ways to do this, love,” said he, a voice that Sydney swore she recognized, yet could not put a name to. “Your choice, but both decisions will end the same.”
Then it’s no real choice. Sydney thought, remembering the voice’s owner then for the same Orc who had caught up to her and Yvla in the sewers after the attack on Catcher’s Corner. Solomon. She searched and found his name among the memory and all that happened when Yvla had fought him anyway.
Solomon called down to her again. “Make your choice, girl . . .”
Sydney swam toward the rope line. A bucket large enough to place her feet inside hung from the end. Sydney shifted her shark tail into human legs, then gripped the thick bit of rope as she climbed in. Despite the wet upon them, the bristles were coarse and sharp. Sydney hung on anyway, despite the stinging feel. With her free hand, she tucked the makeshift bone wand and rag she had trained with beneath her arm, pinching it close to her body to remain unseen.
Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Page 5