The Rising Tide

by Sarah Stirling

  As Makku jumped away from Ivor’s swinging sword, Kilai leapt forwards with a sharp jab of her arm. She could almost feel the way it would crunch into flesh and bone and cloth before she could stick her landing. But at the last possible second Ivor whirled, steel flashing as he caught her blade on his. The twisting motion unbalanced his feet and he crashed over, tugging her with him. Across the deck they tumbled, breath squeezing from her lungs. Red blurred across her vision.

  As she wrestled with him she slapped her hand out, grasping for her fallen cutlass. Fingers scrabbling across wood, they hit the carved wood and beaten leather of the handle, and she thrust forward with a cry. Opening her eyes, she blinked up into blank empty eyes ringed in red, lips parted on a silent gasp. She glanced down, to where her hand still clenched around the sword cutting through his chest and sticking out of his back, blood seeping onto her skin.

  With a scream, she shoved Ivor off her and scrabbled back, scraping her hair back only to smear his blood over her face. It was still warm and tacky and it churned her stomach. The rush of whatever had been in the vial was draining out of her, leaving her empty. Exhausted. She felt like she could just crash back onto the deck straight into slumber, eyes already drooping. Through her heavy lids she could make out the worried faces of the scarce crew left, creeping forward to check to see if Ivor lived.

  Kilai couldn’t afford to feel guilty. When it came down to the crunch she had to choose her survival. The majority’s survival. But as she watched them gather around Ivor’s lifeless body, the red lights fading out into darkness, she couldn’t lift her head from the crushing weight bearing down upon her. For the first time she thought she truly understood what Rook went through when she came to after going beserk and had to face the consequences of her actions. It was one thing to know she would choose one life over another, and yet another entirely to feel his blood on her hands.

  Not even the torrential rain could wash that away.

  Part Seven: Homecoming

  The building was hard to describe. Janus thought it looked vaguely monster-shaped, a recognisable bulk making up the main part of the building, the roof now a pointed, jagged armour across the creature’s back. What must have been the upper part of the monastery had become a winding sort of neck and head resting atop it, complete with strange protrusions that resembled a deer’s antlers all over. In places it appeared as if the building had been heated to extreme temperatures, tiles melting into brick and stone in running waves of material.

  “I’ve walked the length of it five times now and each time I end up in a different room than the last time. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Mylai, breathless. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright with excitement.

  “I saw it move! The nostrils snorted and steam came out!”

  “Those are clearly its eyes.”

  “They are not!”

  Neyvik simply stared at it, stomping on a blue plant with teeth that was trying to gnaw on her leg. The entire length of the gardens, once a lush green and tranquil sanctuary, had turned into a nightmare realm of garish colours and murderous fauna, the trees reaching out with bony hands to try and strangle them on their way past. Janus had shot one. Neyvik had hacked the other to pieces with its own branch.

  “It is bound to this land now. Will be in its interest to help you.”

  “I will believe that when I see it.” She glanced at him. He stared back at her. “I do not know what it is you are doing here. You are no rift warden like that other boy. You are not honour bound to help us.”

  “Kardak.”

  She gave him a weary look.

  Janus sighed. “Don’t have an answer for you. When I find it, will let you know.”

  “You said you wanted more of your reimyr bullets.”

  “Yes.”

  Neyvik nodded, turning back to give the outside of the monastery another long, troubled look. “It is quite a simple procedure. I always had Hika take care of it. She is good at summoning weak spirits through the rift and sending them back before any damage can be done. Perhaps a little too good, it seems.”

  “Don’t have any bullets for you.”

  Neyvik paused. “There is another way, perhaps. If you were not too attached to your revolver, I can try binding the gun itself. I cannot guarantee it will work, but it would eradicate the need for the charmed bullets.”

  Janus pulled it from the holster and span it in a circle out of habit, fingers running over the worn grooves of the handle. The weapon had been with him through most of his adult life. It was one of two memories he willingly carried with him, a reminder of who he was once so he would never become that person again. Could he bear to lose it if things went wrong?

  Twirling it in another circle, he placed it into her palm and then shoved his hands in his pockets to contain his fidgeting hands. The tattered ends of his coat flapped in the wind. In the end, he would only keep clinging to the memory of his past if he was never willing to let it go. If Neyvik’s experiment worked, then it worked. If not, well, Janus could always get himself a new gun.

  “I will see it is taken care of,” said Neyvik. “So long as this house does not kill me first.”

  Janus fell into step with her, towards the warped structure of the monastery. “Might take a while to settle.”

  “Which means we need to sleep in a hostile home.”

  He flashed her a grin and a shrug. She rolled her eyes. As they parted ways, Janus wandered the labyrinth of hallways, uncertain which way was which. It no longer mattered anyway, for until the contract settled the riftspawn haunting the walls would decide where he got to and when. So he left it up to the Danma Vyll to decide, contemplating his next move from there.

  If the world was falling into disrepair then there might be nowhere he could go that would be safe, but Janus had never much cared for the mundane. Maybe he would be better heading back to Tsellyr, to consult with Lord Sandson. It would be a start, at the very least.

  In his musings, he did not realise he had entered the altar room until a voice exhaled a soft, “Oh,” and he looked up to see Hika rising from the altar at the front, kobi spilling around her. “Janus.”

  Light spilled through the windows above – now shaped in formless splatters – rays spilling across the temple floor. Hika’s emerald green kobi shone in the pastel pink light, a contrast in tones that might have captivated one of the painters of the murals upon the walls. For a moment he was caught in the image, uncertain what to say or do. So Janus shuffled forward until he came to the second closest bench to the altar, dropping onto it with a sigh. His body stretched out in relief, bones weary from running himself ragged.

  “Avoiding them never helps.”

  Hika froze. In her hands was a bundle of candlesticks, clutched with white knuckles. “I’m not avoiding anyone,” she said, turning her back to him as she busied herself with sorting out the ones that had melted down. “They’re avoiding me, if you must know.” Janus thought he might have tried to use one of those candelabras as a weapon against the Danma Vyll.

  “They do not understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “Enough. Desperate times drive people to desperate acts.”

  “I can handle it, you know.” She whirled. With the light streaming in, he could see that both of her eyes were a solid black. “I know how to take just enough. I know how to send them back. I wouldn’t put any of them at risk. Not really.”

  Janus tapped out a rhythm on the back of the bench before him. “You did.”

  “I – I just wanted to help. You saw it. We needed more power if we wanted to stay alive.”

  “Mm.” He had heard similar arguments before. About necessity.

  “And I couldn’t just let more girls die because of old fashioned rules that should no longer apply. It makes no sense. As rift maidens we are expected to channel riftspawn when necessary. It has always been a dangerous job. Why is it that these wardens can come as they please, bearing as much power as they wish, and yet I am the enemy
for, what? For trying to help.”

  Janus understood. More than anyone, he understood the feeling of helplessness. “Was it the first time?”

  Hika bit her lip, looking down as some of her hair fell over her face.

  “Did you invite it here?”

  “Are you seriously judging me right now? You, the one who does anything the mayor of Tsellyr asks him to? You, who bears the mark of the Order but carries none of the responsibility?” Her chest heaved, pants of breath filling up the hall.

  “Not judging you.” Janus rolled out his neck, wincing when the bones cracked. “But what you did was dangerous.”

  “I know.”

  “They could have died. You could have died. Taking on a riftspawn unbonded is playing with fire.”

  “But I needed the power to fight back.”

  His mouth quirked. “Power comes with a price. Should decide what you’re willing to pay first.”

  Hika’s brows furrowed. Her hand moved to her head where small horns protruded from her dark hair, like tiny black antlers. “I told you. I know how to control it. I would join the Order properly. I would become a rift warden, only I’m not allowed. What is the point? What can I do, married to an institution I never asked to be part of?” She scrubbed at her eyes. “I feel so powerless, Janus.”

  “You could have spoken to us.”

  Both heads turned as Neyvik entered the temple room. In a clean kobi of pale yellow, she swept across the floor until she stood just behind him, unable to cross that last threshold to her friend. Her arms crossed over her chest. “There are other ways than running off, channelling spirits of who knows what nature. What in the name of Kusok were you thinking?”

  “That we could protect ourselves! That we could be like those Riftkeepers who always look down upon us!”

  Memories were rolling over Janus like the waves of the ocean crashing into shore during a storm. Once they began he could not stop the onslaught, drowning under the barrage of images from the past. Neyvik’s protests washed over him, the argument becoming one he had heard many a time before. It was strange, to know he still sat in the sunlit church, but to not be aware of it.

  “This experiment could change everything. Think of the possibilities, if ordinary soldiers had these extraordinary abilities. War would never look the same.”

  He had been too young to voice his concerns then. Why were these magical abilities only useful in times of war? What about in times of peace? Could healing not be used on the wounded? Could clairvoyance not be used to prevent future suffering? There was a world of potential that could come from a connection to the world beyond the rifts but it had never been realised by small minds entrapped in the cycle of killing and revenge.

  Not to mention the cost. In a small village in the Bluestone mountains, Janus had held several men and women he had once called friend in his arms and watched as the last light faded from their eyes. He had seen the consequences first hand, of messing with forces the human mind did not understand. It was another world. Another realm. The human body was not meant to sustain the powers held by these strange creatures. Unable to cope, it began to collapse and wither until the bearer eventually died. Exceptions existed – the Riftkeepers knew the procedures for making the process safer – but even new rift wardens amongst their ranks were not guaranteed to survive.

  “I did not think you were so narrow-minded.”

  For an indeterminable passage of time, Janus could not tell who spoke the words. One face bled into another, the temple floor blurring into the withered ground beneath his feet, patches of snow the only evidence of the ravages of winter. He could feel the guilt and shame eat him from the inside out, hands quivering on the gun hanging at his sides. Beneath his feet the ground began to rumble. An earthquake, maybe? Or an avalanche?

  As his anguish grew, the vibrations became more forceful, until rocks and snow crashed in the distance, his stance thrown by the tremors. It was as if the very earth itself was trying to shake him. As if trying to say, wake up from this nightmare. But no matter how many times Janus closed his eyes, their gravestones still remained, jutting from the cold, dark ground to put name to his failure. To his cowardice.

  “Do you not see what your greed has caused?”

  His words, only his voice sounded different. His hands still felt the cloth beneath his palms as he wrenched that wretched scientist to his face and shook him harder than the earth beneath his feet, rumbling on and on and on. His bones still ached from punching his superior in the face so many times his nose permanently healed squint, the mark of his anger. His body still shivered in the icy cold dampness of a cell as they decided what to do with him, as always trying to decide the lives of others like they were nothing more than cattle. Well, Janus had seen the face of more than one god now. For whatever reason he had been spared; he could only assume this torment was his penance.

  “Is this you trying to frighten me? Do you think I will cower before you? Have you really lost sight of yourself that much?”

  “It’s not me! But don’t you see? Why I had to do it? We can’t protect ourselves like this!”

  The shaking rattled his teeth inside his skull, enamel clashing together so hard it hurt. Wake up, wake up, wake up, the vibrations seemed to say. Open your eyes. But his were sealed shut, crusted over. No matter how much he bucked and struggled he could not seem to see anything but a waterfall of his own memories crashing down, down, down. Bang. You’re good at this. You’ll go places, boy. Bang. Top secret. Change the world. Bang. You can see it, can’t you? He’s going to die. Bang. You need to be stronger. Tougher. Bang.

  Janus, where will you go?

  Bang.

  You are Sandson’s man, yes? I have a job for you, if you’re interested.

  Bang.

  Open your eyes!

  The flash of a white raven, wings outstretched. Not quite like the birds of the mortal realm, but similar enough to be recognisable. Pink eyes, black beak. As hollow as a ghost, tumbling away into smoke as if a strong wind could blow it away. A shrieking caw filled his ears, vibrating so loudly his eardrums pounded, and he jerked to attention in the altar room with dust and stone crumbling around him.

  “Janus, what’s happening? The building is falling apart again.”

  Launching to his feet, his hand went to his gun only for his heart to skip at its absence. Remembering he had given it to Neyvik, he forced himself to calm down, experience allowing him to strip away everything but the situation at hand. Dust coated his shoulders, tickling the top of his head as the vibrations grew stronger beneath his feet. That part had been real, then.

  “The fight,” he rasped, suddenly aching for a cigarette if only to occupy his shaking hands. “Your fight distressed it.”

  “How do we stop it?”

  “I can try to –”

  “No!” snapped Neyvik.

  The ground lurched and the room blurred as Janus crashed to the ground, cracking his skull against the wooden bench. Eyes rolling, he heaved himself up only for the tremors to push him back down. Pain exploded in his skull, the throbbing overwhelming rational thought. With a groan, he pulled himself along the line of the pew until he came to the aisle, seeing Neyvik push herself to her feet and run to help Hika. Good. They needed to reconcile while the bond still stabilised. With the contract between all parties occupying the monastery bar himself, Kardak and the other rift warden, any upset would echo through to the riftspawn still settling into the physical world.

  “Need to calm your emotions!” he shouted, voice hoarse. “Calm down!”

  “How am I supposed to –” Neyvik screamed as a chunk of the ceiling thudded to the floor right next to her head. Rolling over, she clung to Hika, the two of them staring up at the hole in the ceiling with wide eyes.

  Janus pushed himself to his knees, swaying dizzily. When he brushed his hand against the tender part of his head it came away sticky with blood. He had hit himself harder than he thought, probably hard enough to rearrange his entire b
rain. Maybe if he was lucky it had knocked a few memories loose, too.

  Grunting, he heaved himself back between the relative shelter of the benches and waited for the room to stop spinning. It was only by sheer force of will that he didn’t retch over the floor.

  “Calm your minds. Focus on something that distracts you.” Janus squeezed his eyes shut and took the worn playing card between his hand, twisting it around his finger so that he could feel every groove and line. Each breath came slower than the last, consciously controlled. In. Out. In. Out. “Think of a happy place, or something.”

  “How am I supposed to do that when my own home is trying to kill me?”

  What had Rook spoken to him of? Her peace with The Rook. Wading through his thoughts was like struggling through a bog, everything an effort he didn’t have the strength for. “Accept it. Accept the spirit in your home. Need to accept…”

  “Janus?” Neyvik appeared before him, hair two lank curtains divided by a pale, bloodless face. She waved a hand before his eyes. “Are you with me?”

  “What happened?”

  “He hurt himself, I think.”

  “We need the physician.”

  “Are you witless? What physician can we find when the world has gone to the Locker?”

  “Well, we can’t do nothing. Maybe we can carry him between us.”

  When it came down to it, they always wasted so much time fighting. Janus was so weary with fighting. He didn’t want to fight anymore. “Stop fighting,” he mumbled. “Accept… accept it.”

  In the black spots of his vision the spectre of The Rook flickered. The shaking was receding but he couldn’t tell if that was due to Neyvik and Hika’s focus upon him or his own fading consciousness. Janus was tired of the struggle. Of his conscience berating him at every moment. Of the constant warfare in his mind.