by E. Hibbs
Not long after the majority left, the Atégos stood in the graveyard with the four surviving Fanchlow Elders. Amid the low maze of simple wooden crucifixes, they all looked on in respectful silence as Julian’s plain coffin was lowered into a fresh hole in the ground, on two thick strips of leather. Hawthorne petals littered the dead earth, like ghostly snow.
Silas bowed his head in prayer, asking God to watch over his fallen father; to take care of him, for he had been a good man, and deserved his rightful place in Heaven. Many people had uttered surprise at how unaffected Silas seemed by Julian’s passing, after the long hard time they had all watched him fight for life. But that was only in their eyes. Silas could feel the full pain of his grief tearing violently at his chest as Father Fortésa recited into the heavy air.
“...Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life. Amen.”
“Amen,” the remaining congregation muttered, and drew the cross over their chests.
Following the service, Raphael was immediately surrounded by the Elders. Silas watched as Father Fortésa placed a blessing hand on his mother’s head, her hair obscured by a black mourning wimple.
“Si?”
He glanced down to see Uriel clutching at the hem of his tunic. Uriel’s childish face was streaked with tears and confusion, and Silas patted his head.
“What is it?”
“Si, when can we see father again?” Uriel asked innocently.
Silas paused, and quickly averted his eyes to the exposed coffin. The grave was still open, his feet inches from its lip.
“Not for a time,” he replied quietly. He felt Uriel stir, and clumsily wiped at his brother’s eyes with the pad of his thumb. But Uriel flung his arms around Silas’ waist – only just managing to reach high enough – and held him tightly. Silas hesitated for a moment, but then rested his hands on the tiny shoulders level with his hips.
He glanced around. Mekina was clutching Selena to her. Unlike Uriel, Selena was old enough to understand what had happened to their father, and she was weeping uncontrollably into their elder sister’s skirt.
Feeling Silas’ eyes on her, Mekina looked up at him, her face a knot of pain. Silas stood as still as ever, and gave her a small nod. His lips were pressed tightly into an expressionless line, but his eyes shone with his own private sorrow. She accepted the simple gesture, and returned it before turning to place a hand on Araena’s cheek.
Araena was in a terrible state. She had been crying throughout the entire service, and had barely ceased to weep since Julian had slipped away four days before. As he looked at her, it seemed to Silas that his father’s death had also taken a piece of his mother with him. She seemed so frail and broken beneath the rolling clouds overhead, as though their very presence would be enough to make her knees buckle, and the faintest breath of wind threatened to shatter her.
Raphael approached and put an arm around her shoulders, and she curled into him, burying her face in his chest. The Elders had now let him be, but a shadow was lingering on his brow following their conversation. Silas watched the four men in his periphery, making their way back into the village, and wondered what could have possibly possessed them to leap onto Raphael in that way, during the final farewell to his father.
Surely, the new duties could be left until a less intimate moment, he thought to himself, and the words were like acid in his mind.
A crashing roll of thunder filled the sky, and was shortly followed by the first heavy raindrops. Silas turned his eyes to the Heavens as one splashed beside his nose, running down like a tear. But it was quickly lost as more fell, soaking his shoulders and pulling his hair straight.
Murmurs went up as the rain settled on its onslaught, and the remaining well-wishers hurried away to the shelter of their homes. Only the Atégos stayed – and Father Fortésa, who stood slightly apart, surveying them with aged, squinting eyes. Although he was already at a good age, he was well into his twilight years and his sight was fading fast. Behind the five siblings and their widowed mother, all he could see was a white curtain that was the rain, obscuring the Valley in flickering drizzle. The sound of it filled the air, bouncing off the leaves and ground like a million tiny voices whispering to one another.
At the thought of water, and the close proximity of the open grave, Father Fortésa quickly crossed himself. “Kyrie eleison,” he muttered under his breath, and then hid his mouth in the crook of his arm, coughing into his sleeve.
Silas moved his head ever so slightly to glance over out of the corner of his eye. Father Fortésa noticed the gentle movement and looked at Silas, who gave him a small nod. The priest softly touched his lips – his fingers twisted from arthritis – and turned the boy a thin smile in return. The two of them held a steady gaze upon the other for a moment, and then Silas broke away so as to not risk insult.
Father Fortésa, however, kept his attention on Silas. He looked at his toned, powerful frame and the way he held himself: straight and sturdy, like an oak. The lad was short for his age, but substituted it well enough with physical strength. Everyone could work for hours on end in the fields, but Silas took it in his stride as easily as though each blow of the scythe was the first in the long line. While Uriel clutched at him – in an attempt to gather some reassurance and to escape from the worst of the rain – Silas stood still and indifferent.
Father Fortésa mused about this brooding boy, and found himself strangely troubled by him. Silas always seemed to be on the outside, looking in on all that might pass him by, with eyes that surely could not belong in a youth of fifteen years. For as much of a man that age may mean when one was lucky to exceed their fortieth year, Silas was still young. He had survived childhood, but now carried on into the full horizon of his life as though touched by something dark and nameless. The way he seemed to view the world was one which Father Fortésa had never seen before.
Silas closed his eyes and felt the rain running off his hair, plastered to his forehead and strangely warm with the wetness. He parted his lips slightly and let some of the water trickle into his mouth. His eyes were hot and prickly with tears, and whether they escaped and fell to earth disguised with the rain, he didn’t know. When he opened them again, his vision was blurred, and he blinked several times until his surroundings became clear again.
He gazed out into the shower, and then started as he heard the rattle of Father Fortésa’s breath approaching. He glanced over his shoulder, and could tell from the expression on the priest’s face that he wanted to speak with him.
“Uriel,” Silas said quietly, squeezing his brother’s shoulder. “Go to Raph.”
Without a word of protest, Uriel nodded shakily and made his way over towards the others. Raphael saw him coming and held out a hand, beckoning him over with promise of a full embrace.
Silas wiped some of the rain away from his mouth so he wouldn’t spray it when he spoke. “Thank you, Father. That was a wonderful service.”
Father Fortésa barely reacted. He stood close: close enough to have reached out and touched Silas’ shoulder. “He did deserve it,” he replied, and quickly stifled another cough before continuing. “Besides his standing as an Elder, he was certainly a good man, I must say.”
Silas simply nodded in agreement, not looking at him.
Father Fortésa eyed him, brows lowering ever so slightly. “Such a terrible occasion it is for all of us, but especially for you and your family,” he noted, “and yet ye have shed a tear not. Brave boy. Or foolish, perhaps.”
Silas glanced over fleetingly, and then held his head high, deliberately not looking at the grave. “I remember Julian Atégo as the man he was when he walked this land beside me, Father. Not as this coffin at my feet.”
The priest pressed his lips together and ran his gnarled fingers through his long greying beard. When he reached the wiry tips over his breastbone, he pulled on them gently, loosening any beads of rain that had settled within.
“Well said
,” he answered eventually.
And Silas, true to his nature, remained silent.
Behind them, Raphael squeezed Uriel’s hand. “Come, then,” he said, “let us go home, aye?”
Mekina nodded and adjusted her grip on Araena, following Raphael as he began to lead them back into the village. Selena held onto Mekina’s skirt like a lifeline, her small feet sinking into the ground and bringing up muddy puddles of water from the saturated soil. Wet grass plastered her boots, and the hem of her dress smacked – heavy and cold – against her calves.
Selena almost walked into Mekina when she stopped and turned her head towards Silas. Mekina called his name and he looked over Father Fortésa’s shoulder.
“I shall follow,” Silas said simply.
Mekina nodded, and carried on walking, her skirt snapping tight as Selena hurried to keep up.
“Have you no fear of death, my son?” Father Fortésa asked Silas abruptly, once the family had moved away.
Silas frowned. “With all due respect, Father, why do you ask this?”
“You seem so ignorant of the manner of your father’s passing. I cannot help but wonder why.”
Silas paused to choose his words carefully. In such a dark time as the death of a family’s leader, he was aware of how important it was to have the support of God. This conversation seemed to be moving onto uncomfortably dangerous ground. He was unsure of what the priest was intending by drawing him into such a discussion.
Most likely, it was some attempt to perhaps understand him a little better. Silas knew himself that many people thought him strange and were wary, because of his quiet voice and sharp senses. The priest’s wonderings, if that was the case, were well-founded even in Silas’ opinion, but he still remained on his guard.
“I am not ignorant. It worries me greatly,” he said eventually. “I fear that I shall lose my mother next, or Raphael.”
Father Fortésa shook his head. “Then you are ignorant. It does not claim the women. It never has.”
Silas looked around at him. “What do you know of this, pray tell? I know little to nothing, like the rest of my family. I do wonder if there is any chance for a cure.”
“I know of no cure, my lad,” Father Fortésa replied, pulling at his beard again, and following it up with a lengthy cough. “I believe that if there was any kind of earthly cure, it would be known of before now. It has been too long now that I believe only God’s hand can hope to lift it from thy family.”
Hearing such words, Silas felt his heart beat like a jackrabbit’s, and he turned to face the ageing priest fully. “Father, what dost thou mean? How long has it been that my forefathers have fallen to this?”
Father Fortésa hurriedly crossed himself again and his posture stiffened. His eyes glazed with a strange mixture of cautious fear and horror, as though he were seeing Silas for the first time.
“Why, my boy, it has been for decades! Centuries, I may even dare add! Every man, as though he drowns in air, has been laid in this very ground beneath our feet – God rest their souls. I know this from my own predecessor of the Cloth, as he knew it from his. It is knowledge that I always thought you and your family did share also. My son, I was not aware that you have not!”
Thunder crashed directly overhead, and the two of them jumped. The rain suddenly seemed to lighten – as though those invisible beings were silencing their own conversations, to listen in on this strange exchange between priest and farm boy.
“I do not understand,” Silas said quietly, his face twisted in confusion.
Father Fortésa reached up and gently held Silas’s cheek in his crooked hand, looking deep into his eyes.
“Then listen to me,” he replied. “It is the work of the demons, in that haunted place across the Wall: Evertodomus! It is they who strike down your men, and who have done so for generations. Those abominable creatures of darkness and depth... they have set a curse upon your name, young Silas. I only pray humbly to God in Heaven that He does receive the fallen, and will relieve those of you left someday, my son.
“Now be off with you, lad! Away with you; and may God have mercy.”
He drew the cross one final time as a huge crack of thunder split the sky.
*
Merrin could sometimes forget just how easy it was to forget. Within the depths of the Lake, swimming alongside a red shoal of chaff, all time spread. Dust drifted on the underside of the gently-waving Surface high overhead, as though caught in some liquid web. Her hair streaked around her, and she smiled. It was a welcome gesture, but a strange one, that seemed dreadfully out of place. She quickly forced those connotations away.
Enjoy yourself, she thought. Carry on smiling. Pretend you are young once again, and not about to become... what you will become.
“Merrin!”
The voice snapped her from her stupor, and she whirled around to see her two cousins, Anula and Lailes, speeding through the water. She kicked her legs and rose up before Anula could grab her around the waist.
“You are not tiring, are you?” Anula teased; her lip curling.
Merrin jutted out her chin defiantly. “Nothing of the sort.”
Lailes laughed, and the sound echoed off the Lakebed. “Liar,” he said, but the sparkles in his eyes flashed, and Merrin shone back her own with a soft white glow.
“If I am the liar,” she replied, “how is it you are yet to catch me?”
Anula swam towards Merrin, but with a quick somersault and kick, Merrin appeared behind her and idly perched on a mossy boulder. She cocked an eyebrow, her dress billowing.
“You are out of practise, cousin, dearest,” she grinned.
Anula glared at her warmly. “Am I indeed? I think not. I think you need a new pair of eyes!”
Before Merrin could ask what she meant, Lailes appeared at her back and grabbed her shoulders. Merrin yelped as he pulled her backwards off the rock, and then glided overhead, fin flickering in triumph.
“She tagged me long ago!” he cried. “And now it is your turn! Come and catch us!”
He and Anula darted off into the distance, their skin shining and glistening like the silver sides of minnow. Merrin let out a disgruntled sigh and felt her gills slap against her neck in frustration. The two of them always worked like that: one acting as a distraction whilst the other crept up. She wondered how she could have forgotten their strategy.
Because it is easy to forget. Or have you forgotten that, too?
She could feel the weight pushing in on her mind; fighting for her attention, wanting to never let go. Like a bubble rising to the Surface, she almost succumbed, but dashed it away before it could dig its hooks in. She followed her cousins, teeth gritted together. It might only be a game of tag, but for as long as it lasted, it was an escape – and she embraced it gladly.
CHAPTER III
The Royal Confidante
L ailes and Anula led Merrin back to Lacudomus. The city loomed in front of her in a mass of grey and green, stretching up towards the yellow shine of the sun cutting its way down through the Surface high above. Its buildings were originally put down by the ancestors, when they had first come and laid the roots of the Asræ; back before the Lake became the vast Mother that She was to them now. The Lake changed, and so did they. She had taken them with Her, and now they were Her children – watching over all of the fishes; the reeds; the frogs, newts, and diving birds who would forever chance Her depths.
But all of that was such a long time ago; too long for any Asræ alive now to remember. Not even Dylana, and she was the oldest of them all who were still living. She was the only one left who had seen the reigns of both Zandor the Great, and Merrin’s father, Zephyr. And now... she would see Merrin’s.
Stop it! Merrin snapped silently. Just find Anula and Lailes!
If she bit her lip as hard as she was grinding her teeth, then she would have drawn blood.
She swam on into the city. It was unrecognisable even from when she was a child: forever changing and becoming ever-green
er. Within its walls, there was a hive of activity; of excitement and of anticipation of those raised early from slumber, before moonrise. The beautiful, sleek forms of Merrin’s fellow Asræ thronged the way, making their own individual preparations for the Rise. Women laughed and sang; their voices the greatest in the world. Children played, using the long reeds to hide.
Merrin glanced at them: her beautiful brothers and sisters of Zandor. They were more wonderful than they would surely ever know, or imagine one as young as her – and so boisterous at any other time – to ever know.
As she passed, they stared. It was a gentle gesture by most – nothing she wasn’t used to after all this time as Princess – but now, every gaze was like the teeth of a pike: small on the skin, but alarmingly sharp.
Merrin knew that they meant well; that it was the invisible, nearby grief that made her see things that weren’t there. Not too long ago, she had found it easy to push away, but now it was like trying to dig into the mud at the bottom of the Lake. Encrusted with boulders, and itself undisturbed from centuries of water-weight pressing down, breaking its thin shell was like a cloud that not even Asræ eyes could see through.
Merrin’s own shell seemed thinner than ever. She gave a polite – and regal – nod of acknowledgement, and then asked a nearby man if he had seen her cousins.
“Yes, they made for the Palace, Your Highness,” he replied with a bow.
“Thank you.”
She left quickly, to avoid the eyes.
The Palace. Her home. If they had returned there, then the game was certainly over. And indeed, as she drew nearer, and the great building towered up out of the beautiful cool water; she noticed the ancient, shrivelled form of Dylana beckoning her closer.
Of course, Merrin thought. Despite everything, her lessons must go on. The Lake ruled all; and always would.