I didn’t lie, Kellen started. I-I don’t remember—
What do you remember? She interrupted, squinting as if she might tease the truth from him with her gaze. Nothing of me. Nothing of the strife between you and your father. Or say rather nothing of Erebus, the one that His Deepness and the Lady of Darkness claim to be your father. Black Keerie shook her head. How many times now have you told me that you do not recall any of your former conflict with Erebus? Nothing of love with me, nor even of your beloved Selkies? Aye, not a shred of remembrance for us, nor the creation of your precious creatures.
Kellen reached for her. Keerie—
She shirked away, her lip curling. Why did you lie to me?
I don’t even know what you’re talking about, he said. You just swam over here and started saying I lied to you, but you won’t even tell me what it is you think I lied about!
The Orc, she said, her voice trembling. The one who swam among the Nomads. He recognized you. Aye, called you by name, Kellen . . .
Kellen’s stomach twisted with her every continued word.
How is it that the Orc knew you, Kellen the Killer? she asked, her tone laced with sarcasm. How did the Orc know you by name when you told me in Mnemosyne that you drowned him in your life before?
Kellen’s mind raced for an answer. You think I’ve only killed one Orc before? He simmered against her claim, furthering his lying and arguments when Black Keerie did not reply. And the one you’re talking about who called me by name a little bit ago? He had a shark tail, Keerie. Not an Orc’s.
Black Keerie’s brow furrowed. His skin was painted of light and dark, like any Orc I have ever seen.
So were some of the others there, said Kellen. There was a Nomad from the Tiger tribes with different shades of skin-tone. You think she was an Orc too?
The one I speak of was no Tiger, said Black Keerie. The one who called to you had a Nomad tail, aye, but it were one from the tribe of Great Whites . . . and his skin hallmarked him for a foul creature of Orcinian ilk. Between his shark tail and his Orcish colors, I would name him a bastard freak, born of two races.
Despite the doubt needling at his insides under Black Keerie’s unrelenting stare, Kellen shrugged. Maybe he was some kind of half-breed, then. I don’t know.
And, again, I ask you, Kellen the Killer, Black Keerie spat the challenge. What do you know? What do you remember of us and the life you supposedly lived among us so long ago?
Kellen took a chance. I remember you being crazy. Just like you’re being now.
The she-squid swam backward as if he had slapped her. What say you to me?
You heard me the first time, said Kellen. After everything I’ve told you, everything you’ve seen since I came back, you think to swim over to me and call me a liar? And over some stupid Nomad who knew my name?
How did he know you, then? Black Keerie flung back at him. How? If not from a life you lived with him before?
Of course he knew from before, said Kellen. I told you that I fought in the gladiator pits of Orphan Knoll. A lot of people came to know my name there because I was a champion! A true killer they knew they could bet on and profit from every time.
So, you knew him in the Knoll, then? She asked. Not in your life ashore?
I’ve known a lot of people, said Kellen. Ashore and below. In the Knoll and outside it too. You going to put me through these questions every time we come across anyone who recognizes me, or knows my name?
A shadow crossed over her face as Black Keerie gave her tentacles an upward thrust to rise above him. If I deem your stories for a falsehood, aye, that I will, Kellen.
He snorted as she moved to swim away from him. So, it’s just Kellen now, huh? Not ‘lover’ anymore.
Black Keerie shot him a look. My true lover, Moros, would never lie to me.
And I haven’t, Kellen insisted. So, get whatever story it is you want to keep telling yourself out of that crazy head of yours.
Black Keerie scoffed, but said nothing further before darting away from him in search of the darker waters ahead to vanish in.
The moment she was gone, Kellen drank a deep breath of Salt to cool his anger and nourish his Sancul body. He closed his eyes then, imagining himself not below, but above. It’s gonna be okay. Kellen sighed, then drank in the Salt breath anew, even as he wished it were true air instead. That he could feel the cool of a nightly breeze, or the sun’s rays on his face rather than the Salt’s cold, eternal current sweeping around him. You just need to calm down. You’ll smooth everything with Keerie over later. She’ll be okay too. She will. Just needs time to cool down.
When he reopened his eyes to reality, Kellen discovered that though Black Keerie and Kanaloa had left him, he was yet to be alone in the dark and deep.
Erebus lingered not twenty feet away, one of his tentacles draped over and ever clutching to Hypnos at his side. Though the eyes of the Sancul son were half-closed, the blazing light once held within in them still dimmed, Kellen swore he noted some bit of recognition in Hypnos.
Erebus drew nearer, bringing Hypnos along in continued guardianship.
What now? Kellen wondered as the monstrous Sancul studied him in likewise return. What do you want? He asked.
It is not what I want, Creature, said Erebus, not unkindly, yet frowning all the same. It is what I have known all the while . . . he looked off in the direction that Black Keerie swam before returning to focus on Kellen once more. And now she sees it too. He sighed. You are running out of time to confess the truth, I think, Creature, said Erebus. Will you confess to me now, that we might end this farse before it is too late?
Kellen licked his lips, debating over what to say and what the outcomes of confessing or no might yield.
No, then, said Erebus, shaking his head before moving onward in follow of Kanaloa and Black Keerie.
Kellen remained frozen as Erebus continued on his swim, one of his mammoth tentacle tips wrapped around his son’s midsection, tugging at Hypnos to follow like a dog upon a leash. To Kellen’s mind, Hypnos offered little resistance to the claim, more allowing himself to be pulled than swimming of his own desire.
What am I supposed to do, Hypnos? Kellen wondered as the sickly Sancul followed his mammoth father’s lead. Can you help me, please? He asked, wishing that Hypnos could read his mind and inner thoughts. You told me to rise, but the others will know I’m a liar and kill me if I try to swim for the surface now. Please, Hypnos! Help me to convince them before Nyx and Kanaloa find out that I’m not really Moros too.
Hypnos gave Kellen no indication of a response as Erebus pulled him away.
Again, Kellen looked up to where he knew the surface existed, though he could not see it. For all its power, the light could not penetrate the surrounding darkness of the deep. Nothing to offer him a glimmer of that which he once knew and ungratefully walked in every day, blinded then as he was now.
A cold, tentacled touch lazed across his arm, setting Kellen to search for its source.
Where he thought to find Kanaloa returned to claim him, instead he looked into the familiar, emerald eyes of his earthly mother. Though Kellen warned himself that her face were only a mask, or bit of glamour magic weaved and worn by the lady of darkness herself, he welcomed Nyx and her motherly protection all the same.
Come, my son, she said, taking him by the hand to lead him onward. Swim with me awhile. The Cavern of Somnus awaits us, and soon enough we shall put all their doubting of you and their questions to rest.
How? Kellen wondered to himself, following Nyx lead into the darkened waters ahead. How am I ever to convince them that I’m supposed to be someone that I know I’m not?
Kellen could not guess the answers to his questions. He swam onward with Nyx at his side, his gaze eternally looking up to the leagues above, dreaming of the surface world from which he had plummeted. For all his constant wondering of how he might make it back to the sunlight and the shore, Kellen could not stop the haunting words of Marisa Bourgeois from playing in his
mind on an endless loop.
The Salt has you in its sway now, Kellen Winstel . . . and you shall never escape.
Kellen shivered as he followed Nyx ever onward, all his former railing against the prophetic words lost to the same darkness and muted deep that the mystic Silkie had condemned him.
9
CHIDI
Nestled and cramped in the underbelly of Girard’s boat, Chidi stood over the kitchen galley’s small table, her gaze wandering over the various, Ancient symbols that Marisa Bourgeois had drawn from memory. Created of cut-up, paper clippings and Styrofoam cups, each symbol was different from the next. Marisa worked at aligning some groupings of the symbols to form scraps of worded chains. Chidi thought of their work together like searching among scattered pieces of a greater puzzle, and without the pictured box to reveal the ultimate design.
Whilst the mystic Silkie continued maneuvering some of the symbol groupings, Chidi chewed on her lower lip in attempting to discern that which Marisa seemingly saw in them. Unlike puzzle pieces with hints of colored hues to match alongside others, or else the squared off, end pieces to signify a border, Chidi could make no sense of the scattered symbols’ ultimate final placement among the rest. The longer Marisa carried on, the more Chidi thought of the paper and Styrofoam cutouts like a fool’s attempt at recreating the shattered remnants of an Egyptian, hieroglyphic-like wall.
She and Marisa had scarcely left the table during the previous three days of their voyage across the Salt, their only breaks coming when exhaustion took them, or else when Allambee reminded either of them to eat. For each time Chidi believed they had one of the symbols paired with a comparing letter in the Common language, their attempts to translate the meaning ended in non-sensical words, forcing them to trace their efforts back over and again in search of the true translation.
Despite their failings, Chidi’s mind would not release her from the mental task. She dreamt of the symbols, all of them swimming together each time she closed her eyes for rest. For every time she awoke after having nodded off, always Chidi found Marisa Bourgeois still laboring at the linguistic puzzle beneath a pale, thin light afforded to them from the overhead kitchen lamp. Chidi had yet to see the famed and elusive runner tire, though she frequently found Allambee asleep nearby.
Allambee snored softly on, rolling upon the makeshift cot that had formerly served as the table’s bench seat. Cocooned in a crimson, wool blanket as he slept, Allambee looked older to her eyes now than she remembered him being upon their first meeting outside of Chicago.
Yawning, Chidi put her fist to her eyes, attempting to rub her drowsiness away and refocus on the remaining pieces before her. She caught Marisa Bourgeois smiling back at her from across the table. “What?” Chidi asked.
“You look tired,” said Marisa.
“I am,” said Chidi.
“Shall I put the kettle on?”
“No,” said Chidi. “I’ll be fine. Just need some fresh air.”
“Go, then,” said Marisa. “I will stay and continue the work.”
Chidi remained. “Will we ever figure this out, Marisa? These . . . words and pieces.”
“In time, all things are possible,” said Marisa, her fingers flying across the bits of paper, continuing to fly them around and around the table-face before settling on a new location among the others, and then keeping on to the next.
Chidi grimaced. “You said we didn’t have much time . . .”
“We don’t,” said Marisa. “All the more reason that I will continue the work whilst you venture topside and take in some air.”
Chidi nodded, yet still hesitated to go.
“What is it, Chidi?” Marisa asked. “What troubles you now?”
“Many things.” Chidi glanced toward Allambee as he slept.
Marisa cued on her silence. “You fear for him . . .”
“I do,” she said.
“As he and David Bryant worry for you also,” said Marisa. “A true friend is rare enough to find. You are all fortunate to have found such treasures.”
I know, Chidi thought, continuing to watch Allambee, wondering if he slept as peacefully as he looked. She hoped he was not haunted by the same Salt terrors that roamed free in her mind at night. Rather than give rise to such ideas, Chidi distracted herself by studying Marisa’s movements.
The mystic Silkie’s hands moved with blinding speed to position the pieces, her face beset with a stoic nature that reminded Chidi of another friend and her former captain. “I want to ask you about someone,” she said to Marisa, going on when the mystic Silkie nodded. “It’s about Lenny Dolan. You said he was okay . . . that you saw him?”
“Aye,” said Marisa, continuing her work. “I saw and knew him from my dreams.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, then?” Chidi asked. “Why didn’t you tell me that Lenny has a role to play in all these other things you see? Back when we were locked away in Crayfish Cavern together. Before Declan set you free.”
“Before we left you there alone, you mean,” Marisa chuckled, as if she read the deeper, truer question to Chidi’s inner thoughts. “As I told you already, Chidi, yours was a different current to follow.”
“You did tell me,” she admitted. “But you also told us earlier that you gave Declan a choice that same night to go with you or no. Why didn’t you give me one?”
Marisa looked away from the puzzle, her knowing gaze unblinking as she looked upon Chidi. “I gave you my answer on this already too, Chidi . . . had I allowed you to come with us—”
“Then you wouldn’t have this ring,” Chidi interrupted, clenching a fist to warm the Merrow ring upon her finger that Wilda had given to her. “That’s not my point. Something you told me when we first met outside the Shedd Aquarium was that there is always a choice, Marisa, but by you leaving me in the cage in Crayfish Cavern . . . I didn’t have one.” Chidi blinked. “You didn’t give me a choice either. You just forced me to take that different direction you needed me to go. Left me for the Nomad brothers to take away with Bryant, before they brought us both to shore and then headed inland to find Quill’s child.”
“Aye,” said Marisa. “What you fail to understand, Chidi, is that leaving you that night in Crayfish Cavern was my choice to a decision placed before me. Had I freed you to come with Declan and I, there should now be a host of the Crayfish’s former slaves that would be dead, or else still trapped by the Salt.” Marisa’s eyes glinted. “Where are those former slaves now, Chidi?”
“Ashore,” said Chidi. “They’re with Zymon.”
Marisa nodded. “And all of them free and far from the Salt. All safe and protected in the haven that Zymon Gorski provides. None of them would be there now if not in thanks to your coming among them.” Marisa’s gaze flickered. “And, again, I say to you, Chidi, that had you not gone ashore with the Nomad brothers, Quill and Watawa, we should not have the Merrow ring, nor Allambee Omondi with us now either.” Her voice sharpened. “Without them, we should all meet our shared end at the hands and tentacles of the Other and his minions in the storm to come.”
Chidi shrunk beneath Marisa’s stern gaze and rising tone. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I just don’t understand is all. There are so many things I don’t understand. This puzzle, or riddle about five pieces of two . . . I don’t know what any of it means.” She rubbed her eyes, the symbols seemingly blurring in her tired eyes. “How did you even find about it?”
“My father often shared many fabled tales of old with me,” said Marisa, her shoulders slumping, the fire in her eyes gone out at the admission. “When I was a child, and despite all my mother’s loathing of them, I remember his love for telling me of the Ancient ways and all their stories. How They ruled over the Salt and all others who swam it without thought that such a paradise should someday come to end.” Marisa chuckled. “Would that my father could see me now here with you, Chidi, the pair of us working to decipher the Ancient, forgotten language.” She focused on the ring upon Chidi’s finger. “Aye,
and if he could see us now with one of the five pieces of two already recovered.”
At Marisa’s mention, Chidi unclenched her fist of the hand wearing Wilda’s ring. With her other hand, she ran her fingers over the smooth, plain pebble that served as its lone adornment. “What do you think it does?” Chidi asked. “If it’s a key, like you think that it is, then what does it unlock?”
“I know not for certain,” said Marisa, refocusing on the scattered pieces of parchment before her. “But I hope that all the symbols here will reveal the message and the answer.”
If we ever figure it out, Chidi thought, frowning. “Five pieces of two . . .” she said, more to herself than Marisa. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. How can something be five pieces, but also two?”
“Riddles oft seem impossible until the answer is unraveled.” Marisa chuckled. “But you wonder as I once did.”
“You’ve figured it then?” Chidi asked. “The answer to what can be five pieces and also two? The riddle and what it all means?”
“We should not be down here if I had,” said Marisa. “But I hold to some small belief that I may have worked out a keystone portion of the Ancient riddle, aye. In truth, though, I did not discover it until I headed north alone, after parting ways with you and Declan Dolan.”
“What did you find up there?”
“Snow and stone and cold. Nothing of worthwhile note,” said Marisa. “Just a lonely, Ancient temple, its name and locale lost to antiquity and Salt. And yet I lingered there, believing the Ancients had hidden secrets within the ice-covered, rocky walls. Some glimmer of the past awaiting rebirth if I were patient enough to work out such meaning.”
“And?”
Marisa frowned. “Like so many times before, I was wrong in my estimations there also.” She looked up at Chidi, then scoffed. “For all you think I see and know, Chidi, I assure you there are many times I feel as lost as you do now.” Her mirth died in her throat as she maneuvered another piece upon the table and slotted it between two others. “And never does one feel so lost as they do in the moment of understanding their errors made. The chances taken. Choices unmade.”
Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Page 13