Mother of Slag

by Timandra Whitecastle

  Lin nodded along sympathetically, mending her nets while he talked haltingly of his insecurities.

  “All my life, I did nothing but fight, and I did it well. Who am I when that’s gone?”

  “You ask too much of yourself,” Lin replied. “You’re still healing. These things take time.”

  “It just feels so … frustrating. I feel so useless.”

  “You think the world only has use for warriors? Look at me. I’m a frail, old woman who has never held a sword in her life.” She grinned at him. “By your rationale, I’d be absolutely useless. And yet, there are people out there on the Wards who wouldn’t be alive right now if I weren’t around.”

  “But you’re a healer. That’s different.”

  “For a long time, I didn’t think so. I was always the worst of my class, maybe even one of the most talentless acolytes this temple has ever seen. And then, during the loneliness, when I only had the mermaids to sing to, I questioned my purpose of being here, just like you.”

  “What helped?” Diaz asked.

  Lin put away her mending and stared out over the bay for a while, her head cocked as though she were deep in thought.

  “Alcohol,” she said finally and laughed in his face. “Copious amounts of Fishermen’s Muck. It’s pretty disgusting but it helped numb the pain sometimes. Of course, after a decade or two, when I had given up hope of figuring out why I, the least of all we had been, was the last one of my people, Mari suddenly showed up. And then I knew why.”

  “To pass on what you had learned?”

  “No. To make sure the next generation of priestesses don’t make the same mistakes we did. I’m not sure I’m doing very well on that account. But there is no one left but me to do it.”

  She leaned over and patted his hand in a most maternal manner.

  “You were given a gift, Telen. A chance to change. So you have to find the thing that no one else but you can do, and then do that as good as you can.”

  Her words resonated in his head the rest of the day so that he felt restless and irritated. Later, Jeska came to tell him that this was a full moon night and the three women would travel to the Wards to heal whomever came to the Ladies’ ceremony. He could not come along, obviously, but they would be back before morning. Would he ready them a simple breakfast?

  He agreed, surprised at how calm his voice sounded, and tried to hide his sudden lightheadedness while Jeska chattered.

  He had been here nearly a full month now. And had little to show for it. His breath came fast and shallow. Time. He was wasting so much time. There was something he had to do. Someone he had to be. But he was still little further along than when he had first come here.

  Decades, Lin had said. He had many decades left in his half-wight life. So many. And he didn’t want to spend them all here. Couldn’t imagine himself staying here for so long.

  Jeska left.

  He watched the sun set, and watched the moon rise, staring onto the silver ripples on the waves.

  A shadow broke through them, and he sat up.

  The gjalp had returned.

  His gjalp.

  She swam closer to the stones steps the sun had warmed all day and warbled at him urgently, beckoning for him to join her in the water.

  “All right,” he said, wading in. “But only if you don’t take me to the dark water place again.”

  She flashed her jagged teeth at him in an approximation of a smile and glided through the waves ahead of him. She’d swim a few meters, then emerge to check on how far he’d come in the meantime.

  When the water came far up his chest, and the buoyancy made it hard for his toes to keep a grip on the pebbly sea floor, he turned on his back and swam alongside her that way. Occasionally she’d course correct him, bumping into him or drawing him closer with a gentle coil around his waist.

  The waves grew more powerful as they swam out into the open sea beyond the calm shallows of the bay, and he had to turn over and take them head on. Whenever he had difficulties, she was there by his side, wrapping herself around him to help. The touch of her suckers on his skin was still alien. Her hair-thin trails stung when they moved over his skin. Her touch was unlike any other, and yet it felt familiar to lean into her steadiness and be guided by this creature who hadn’t shown him any ill will whatsoever.

  As they swam out together, heading around the island once more, other gjalp joined them. Diaz noticed that they came a lot closer than they had the last time, growing accustomed to the strange partnership between his gjalp and him perhaps.

  One of them, with the jelly-like upper body of her sisters but the powerful fins of a sturgeon, playfully jostled against him, knocking him off course, her fish skin rough like sand. Emboldened by this, a few others took up the game, nuzzling him, buffeting him into a different direction only to set him back on course.

  It was intimidating to witness how much strength lay in those lithe bodies and know that he stood no chance against them in their element. This must be what humans feel when they see wights, he thought. They were graceful and strong, and they knew they could tear him apart with frightening ease. However, he didn’t sense danger. There was no threat in their actions. Just plain curiosity that spoke of a wild, alien intelligence.

  The moon’s reflection gleamed on the water like a thousand kisses, and their group swam out to a circle of silver beyond the shadow of the dormant volcano, that mountainous stairwell of the Temple. There the night water was black as the water in the pool, a hidden depth of the sea beneath Diaz as the seabed fell away from the shore of the island.

  His honor guard stopped playing, and one after the other, they dove down deep, uttering little excited noises as they did so, with little more than faint splashes of their tails. His gjalp uncoiled herself from around him, letting him tread water in the middle of the silver circle on his own, her eyes diverted by something below the surface.

  She did not join the others immediately; rather she lingered by his side, placing one of her clawed hands awkwardly into his. She met his gaze as though waiting for him to do something, but he was puzzled and busy enough trying to keep his head above the water. Then she mimicked taking a deep breath, submerged herself without letting him go, and came back up again, head slightly cocked to one side.

  “You want me to go under?”

  He took a deep breath, and together they went down a few meters. The water around them was lit by the moon, and with his wightish eyes, Diaz could make out flashes of silver reflecting from a host of gjalp below him.

  They had congregated into a large swarm, revolving around the edge of the full moon’s light. Hundreds of different shapes and sizes, a mixed crowd of creatures all of them half-wights, half-fish, and all swam together, round and round, spinning and circling an empty center that led down into an impenetrable darkness. As his eyes adjusted to the murky seascape below him, he could see the gjalp swimming closely alongside each other, their lean bodies touching, stroking each other as they made their circuit while others shoved against one another or playfully snatched and grabbed each other with their tentacles.

  All was movement.

  All was silent.

  And it seemed to Diaz that he was intruding on a holy ceremony of sorts, a celebration that he neither knew nor could take part in. He emerged for a ringing gulp of air. His gjalp followed, watching him, the moon a sphere of milky white in her black eyes.

  She made a soft keening sound and made to go underwater again.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly. His lungs still burned, and he tried not to swallow water as he spoke. “I must breathe. I must stay up here. I cannot join.”

  She stared at him with her head tilted to the side as though listening to something far, far away.

  Then she sang.

  Softly at first, until a second voice joined in, a dolphin shaped gjalp surfacing shortly, then a third, a fourth, until the water below reverberated with sound. It was a simple, yet haunting tune he recognized. An old
ballad to Mother Yorth he had heard his grandmother sing to him as he sat on her knee a lifetime ago. A kind of ancient magic, a yearning for a sense of belonging, filled the air and the water around him, set alight by the moon’s cold flame. He wasn’t sure of the words, but he found himself humming along.

  This pleased his gjalp immensely. She bobbed in and out of the water, arching her body in what might have been a dance, flitting around him excitedly at the center of the circling swarm. She beckoned him to move closer and he did, and she fastened herself around his waist again. Her face so close to his, all he could see was his own reflection in her dark orbs, the same eyes, the same, the same. She opened her jaws as though snatching another breath, and he realized that she was echoing his own breathing as well as giving him to understand that they’d be going back down once more.

  He took a deep breath and they dove down together, into the chorus of voices. She pulled him to the edge of the moonlight circle, in among the uppermost ranks of the writhing, dancing, squirming swarm, and there she began to sing again, softly into his ear as she pressed against him, holding him fast. Carried along by the current of bodies, he clung to her, and hummed along the ancient tune, until it crescendoed and the water bubbled and frothed around him, pulsing and rippling as though it too were alive. A deep slow beat sounded from the abyss below, like a heartbeat, and for a second, his ears filled with sound of the song and his own heartbeat, he felt connected.

  Everything was connected.

  The gjalp, the sea, the wights, the land. And in the center of the Temple, in its most holy stairwell, he knew, the pool of inky water pounded along to their steady beat, and he was close to a revelation, his lungs nearly bursting with the need to inhale, his heart beating as if to break out of his ribcage, and tingling, electric sensations running through his entire body, fins and flesh and frisson, and he was nearly there, he nearly had it, an idea, a memory that kept on eluding his grip …

  Then the music suddenly stopped again and silence fell once more, and as he rose to the surface, he saw the merfolk dissipate back into the shadows, some in groups, some on their own, dissolving the circle.

  He held on to his gjalp on the edge of the circle, his breath coming hard and fast from the exertion, and she held onto him.

  And they were alone.

  Chapter 30

  Nora opened her eyes. At least, she felt her eyelids move. She saw nothing. Darkness lay in front of her. Pitch black and deep, a hole into a starless void. She heard the sound of gravel crunch under her boots as she shifted her weight to turn around.

  “Owen?”

  Her hand rose and touched her left eyelid. That eye had been broken. That cheek had been wet with blood and eyeball liquid. It was smooth and soft now. Warm. She could feel her eye move below the lid. Whole.

  Her faltering breath misted in front of her. She could feel the moisture, but couldn’t even see the hand she raised right in front of her face. She could sense the air move as she waved her hand. It streamed past her splayed fingers. Out there in the black, she felt a shadow flit away.

  Here we go again, she thought.

  The darkness, a woman’s voice said. You know it so well.

  Nora took another step forward into the black.

  Go back, the voice whispered. Go back gobackgoback

  Nora turned to peer over her shoulder, but behind her there was only more darkness. She swallowed. She took another step forward. It felt like she were walking on a trodden dirt path, gravel and solid soil beneath her feet. But the black around her felt like an enclosed space. When she laid her head back, she thought she could see a glimpse of enormous pillars holding up the vaulted dome of the starless night. Her hand brushed up against a cold, gnarled surface. She ran her fingertips over the surface and followed intricate lines, carvings or inlaid patterns. The swirls and organic shapes put a stylized forest in her mind, full of twisting, growing brambles and tall trunks of trees. Slowly, as in a dream, she lifted her hand and it came to rest on the large metal hoop of a knocker.

  A door.

  She stood in front of a door.

  What are you doing? Don’t go through there. Do you want to die?

  She felt the door give way as she pushed it open, and found herself in a long hall. She turned. The door was gone. The long hall stretched behind her into infinite darkness.

  Mists coiled on the floor between wooden posts and they hung in the rafters. Oil lamps hung from the mouths of carved wooden beasts—mermaids, furies, lizardfolk—and they sputtered to life when she walked down the middle of the hall.

  On the far wall in front of her, there seemed to be a narrow round opening through which silver light fell. Her footsteps were loud to her own ears as she strode across the oaken floorboards.

  Go back.

  Don’t go. Don’t leave us.

  What if she really dies this time? Will we die with her? Will we?

  We don’t want to die. Wedontwanttodie

  Other voices had joined the woman’s, and their whispers filled the air with a sweet sickly smell.

  When she looked directly into the silvery light, she saw nothing beyond it. As though it were simply a form of illumination. But when she sidled towards it, moving towards it at an angle, she thought she could see movement beyond. Another doorway, perhaps.

  Every step that brought her closer to the circle of light, the whisperers grew more agitated.

  “I never asked you to be a part of me,” she murmured, walking through the rolling mists. “I don’t want to be trapped inside my own mind, looking out through my own eyes like windows in a prison. Leave me alone.”

  What are you hoping to achieve? There is nothing out there. Nothing out there but death. Don’t go into the light. We don’t want to die. wedontwanttodie

  She walked on and saw that the circle of light came from what appeared to be a round mirror fastened to a table carved from the same old oak the beasts had been made from. Veins the color of ash and soot ran through the smooth wood, aged with centuries. Runes were carved into the mirrors frame, but Nora couldn’t read them.

  Standing directly in front of the mirror, she saw nothing but white light. Chill crept out of the mirror, though. It curled into mists in the darkness between the beastly lightholders and the wooden beams.

  Stop.

  Make her stop.

  Please stop.

  “I found the light,” Nora spoke to the mirror. “Now I have to make a choice.”

  No, please, stop. We beg you.

  The mirror’s surface rippled slightly as she bent closer, and a face appeared out of the swirling white mists. Two faces. One identical to her own, two black coals for eyes, and another, a skull, perched on top of the black hair streaming of into the darkness.

  “Don’t abandon us,” Two-Face Nora implored. “We only have each other now.”

  “You’re scared?” Nora asked her reflection. “Of what?”

  “That you’ll leave us here alone,” Two-Face said, wringing her hands. “That we’ll sleep again, and when we wake, there’ll be someone else, someone new. Always someone new. And if there isn’t? What if we fall asleep again and never wake after you leave us? What if this the only chance we get before an eternity of darkness? We weren’t supposed to be born. We weren’t supposed to be this way. At first, we woke and thought we’d be one with Mother and Father, but they left us. So soon. Everyone left us. Everyone dies, only we remain. Even you don’t want to be here,” she added reproachfully.

  Wedontwanttodie

  Nora frowned. “You’re … lonely?”

  “Rejected. No one wants us. Not really. They want our power and our legend, yes, but not us.”

  Nora stepped back. Her story wasn’t like one of the old stories. The story of a noble warrior searching for victory and honor, going out into the world to make a name for themselves. Clear dividing lines of what was evil, what was good. But it was never that simple, was it? True torment might lie just beneath the surface, hidden within. The names
and memories you couldn’t defeat, couldn’t escape. That would always be with you no matter how deep you drown them.

  That was all the Blade had. The darkness of everyone it had touched. Gods, and heroes, and men and women. And what happened when you listened to all those voices, sifted through the darkness, lived within it, looking for a connection? It crawled into your soul and rotted you from the inside. Until all you were was a husk.

  She looked into the mirror, holding onto the frame. “You created more darkness to hide behind it, didn’t you?”

  “Suffering brings salvation,” Two-Face answered. “Everyone deserves to be punished. Everyone deserves to die. This is the way of the gods. Mother told us.”

  “But the gods are dead, Blade. And they lied. Your mother lied. You don’t have to be what they want you to be. You can make a choice. You can change.”

  She had to make a choice.

  “Defiance comes so easy to you, Nora.” Two-Face shook her heads. “We are not like you.”

  “No. You don’t have to stay here, in the darkness. Alone.” Nora decided. “Come with me.”

  Two-Face crawled out of the mirror and dropped onto the floor next to Nora. She circled her warily, and Nora could smell the faint trace of decay surrounding them. The whisperers in the shadows were silent as the Blade seemed to contemplate Nora’s offer.

  “With you? We would destroy you. We would tear apart your mind.”

  “But you have the power to heal, as well.”

  “You’re weak. One day you will accept the darkness and it will swallow you, too. And we will be alone.”

  “I will fight it. We will fight it together.”

  “You only say that because you want to be together with Owen.”

  “Owen is dead.” Nora’s voice broke when she said it out loud herself. And it a moment for her to swallow down the lump in her throat. “The life is in the blood. That’s what he told me. And as long as my blood runs through my veins, he is alive with me, in my memories of him, of our time together. And so he is safe in my keeping. You could be, too.”