I stand abruptly, the boat rocking beneath me, and step closer. Could it be possible?
Her face is slack, lacking the tight energy she once blazed with. The fiery eyes are empty now. But it is. It’s her.
Miriam.
I rush to her side. The boat lets out a loud creak as the weight shifts.
“What are you doing?” The Keeper snaps.
Up close, I see her more clearly. See her as she died. Clothes ripped and disheveled. Long streaks of brilliant red wherever her skin breaks through. Her face, purple and swollen. Her suffering presses on me like a weight too heavy, flecked with sharp shards of guilt and shame as I look over the signs of the tortures she endured. I failed her.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“What are you blabbering about?” the Keeper says, his words stern and clipped. “Leave her alone. Sit down.”
She stares through me with blank eyes.
“She does not remember?” I ask.
“Of course not. The river washes the soul’s memory clean. This is what I was—”
“Do her wounds still hurt her?” This is what really matters. Just let her forget; let her be at peace.
“No,” he scoffs. “Those are bodily wounds. Here she is only spirit. Those marks will leave her as her spirit gets used to being free of the body and regains its strength.”
Something settles within me, knowing her pain is over and gone.
She leans toward me, peers into my eyes. Strains. Like trying to see through a dirty window.
The Keeper edges closer, his steps vibrating through the floorboards. “Why?”
“What?” I hold her gaze, searching for her within the stupor.
Something flickers over her face. Recognition?
“Why do you ask these things?” The Keeper’s voice raps hard against my skull. “Do you know her?”
“No!” I exclaim. “Not really.”
“By the Gods. Do you want her in a fit of unrest? Get away.” He shoos at me with his staff.
I duck away, lose balance, and tumble right on top of Miriam. Despite how floaty and insubstantial she appears, her body still holds its physical heft—and a piercing coldness I didn’t expect. As soon as I regain my bearings, I spring up. But it’s too late.
Miriam bolts to her feet, her glow flickering in and out. Her eyelids flutter, and she releases an awful gasp. The boat rocks below us, responding to the shift in weight.
“Now you've done it,” the Keeper sneers at me. “Do you understand what you’ve brought on for this soul?”
Miriam gasps again, her eyes wide.
“Forgetting is a gift. It helps them pass on,” he scolds. “Remembering, it is a curse, a punishment for those who must pay for their deeds on Terath.”
I rush to her and grab her arms. “Miriam. Miriam. Miriam. Miriam.” Her name pours out of me like an endless flood.
“I knew it,” the Keeper snarls. “I knew it. The timing of it all. You do know her.”
She blinks.
“Miriam?”
Miriam's eyes dart all around, taking it in. When they reach me, they stop and lock on.
“Angel,” she breathes. She clutches my cloak. “Where am I? What happened?”
I don't know what to say. I fumble for some way to explain.
I don't have to.
“I … I'm dead.” The words are soft. Accepting.
“Yes.”
“And Jordan?”
“We got out. He is safe. We found more people, a whole village, at the sea.”
She closes her eyes and exhales.
When she opens them again, a crease forms between her brows. “What are you doing here?”
“That,” the Keeper butts between us. “Is exactly what I want to know. Did you come to take her back? You cannot have her. You must let her pass on. This is the way of it. You asked before if she felt those wounds. She doesn't now, but she would if you took her back. She would relive her entire death all over again as you dragged her back to Terath. Leave her. She deserves to be at peace.”
“She does. I have not come for her.” I try to break my stare at her to convince him, to look at the Keeper, my feet, anything else. But I still can’t believe I’m seeing her again.
Could I bring Miriam back, too? Oh how I wish I could. I owe it to her, really, after leaving her behind with the Silencers. But I don’t think I have it in me, what it would take to bring back both her and Rona. It burns bitterly inside my chest, but it’s just no use. I have to do what I came for.
As the Keeper lifts his staff to start pushing through the waters again, his eyes narrow. “What are you here for then? What are you? You have still not answered my questions.”
“I am nothing. A—” I don’t want to say it. Not with Miriam right here. But then she has a right to know, the way she trusted me. The way I failed. “A golem.” The word pinches in my chest. I glance to her, brace myself for her shock, a sense of betrayal. But her face still holds the same calm expression. “I do not look for trouble, and I will soon return to my realm.”
“Oh yes, I am sure of that. And you plan to swim back, I imagine?” he says, rolling his eyes. “You took great trouble to get here. There must be something you are after. Now tell me. Is there a different soul you seek? Are you looking for treasure? Trying to become one of the legends? There's very few reasons you heroes ever try this. None have ever succeeded.”
“I’m no hero.”
Miriam abruptly reaches to me and takes my hand in hers. It is opaque but somehow also dense. A chill shoots up my shoulder, into my chest, and settles there. But I hold onto her tight.
“Well that's a first,” the Keeper retorts. “You will tell me what you've come for anyhow. Tell me or I will send you back right now.”
I squeeze Miriam’s hand tighter. “I cannot allow you to send me back.”
The Keeper slams his staff into the boat’s floor with a thunk.
“You cannot allow? You have no say in this. You think strength is the only thing? Let me warn you now—you may think I look small and old and shriveled, and that overpowering me would be easy, but I was not placed at this post to be bullied by the first thing bigger than me. This realm holds powers you could not possibly understand, and they are at my bidding. What is it you have come for? Tell me, or you will leave whether you allow it or not.”
The words spout from him with fervor, each one sharp and piercing. It’s probably true, what he says. And I'm too weary of fighting to pick another.
“It's a soul. A different one.”
“I knew you were here to play hero,” he scoffs.
I have no response for him. He wouldn't understand.
“However… ” he rubs his bald, wrinkled head, “A golem, eh? If there was ever one that could succeed… ” His eyes drift off to somewhere else.
A sudden loud chortle springs from him. “Oh, how interesting,” he grumbles. “How tempting.” His eyes whip back to me. “How did this soul you are seeking pass away?”
Miriam lets go of my hand and steps toward him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What could it matter to you?” She glances back to me, “Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him anything.”
My gut squirms—she’s right, the Keeper’s questions are strange. But then, what is the harm in telling him? I am not sure I will get past him if I don’t go along.
I press my hand to her shoulder. “It’s okay,” I say. Then to the Keeper, “She stabbed herself. In the stomach.”
“Ah, a suicide!” He says it with relish. “When?”
Miriam stares at me as if betrayed. She shakes her head—don’t.
But I don’t see any other way. “Many ages ago. She is from the Beginning.”
“The Beginning?” The Keeper arches his eyebrows. “You have been trapped on Terath even longer than I have been trapped here. She must mean a great deal to you to go through all this to bring her back. Why have you left her here so long?”
/>
“I… did not know how to save her yet.” He does not need to know everything.
He considers me, and I am still as stone, determined not to give myself away.
“Was she at peace with the Gods when she passed?”
I grope through the dark crevices of my mind for all Kythiel told me. “I don’t think so.”
“Then there is a chance… ”
The Keeper shifts the boat toward the shore. His eyes drift to me with an unsettling grin. Miriam watches him with fiery eyes, her arms crossed.
We float into the shore with a lurch.
Rigid rocks stretch from the water into the land; dark shards cover the shore like sand. The ground reaches up to the hard, barren sky in stony tree-like pillars, sparse along the shore but thicker as they creep inland. A whole forest. Somewhere beyond them, whispers, rustles, moans, cries punctuate the quiet. I cannot imagine what the forest hides. I do not want to.
The Keeper nods to Miriam. “Come here.”
She crosses to him at the helm. He bends over the side of the boat and scoops water into his hands. “Drink.”
“No!” She pushes his arms away. Water splatters across the floorboards.
“You must. It’s the Order. You will have a much easier passage to the Crossing this way. With a clear mind.”
“Then it’s good I’m not going to the Crossing,” she turns to me. “I’m coming with you. I’m helping you first.”
“No—” I start, but the Keeper speaks over me.
“Preposterous!” the Keeper retorts. “What could you possibly do to help?”
But Miriam ignores him. “It was more than coincidence that we’ve met again here. You helped me get Jordan out of Epoh. Now I’m meant to help you, I know it. Our paths were brought together for a reason.”
“This is no divine power,” the Keeper scoffs. “It’s just the realm’s way. Souls find those they know here. They are drawn together like magnets. It means nothing.”
And yet I have no soul. What does it mean that we’ve still managed to come together in this strange vast realm? What is this force that pulls us together again?
The Keeper steps to her at the boat’s edge. “If you choose to face the realm fully conscious and take your chances, I suppose that is your business. But you must go. You must make your own way. Every soul must.”
Miriam frowns. “And if the way I choose is to follow him?”
They stand toe-to-toe, eye to eye. The Keeper glares at her, grinds his teeth.
“Then I can do nothing.”
Miriam smiles triumphantly as the Keeper shrugs away.
“Off. Both of you. Carefully.” He shoos at us with his staff toward the helm. We climb over onto the shore. Dark shards of rock and thick sandy grains stick between my wet toes.
The Keeper follows us, then leans over and runs his hand against the boat’s inner wall, pulls a dark cloth from along it. A quick swish of his wrists and the cloth flies out over the boat. As it settles on top of it, the boat is replaced by a clutter of dense rock, floating oddly on the river. Then he leans forward and tugs at its helm, dragging it up onto the sand.
I stride into the water next to him and pull at the boat’s side. But the stones under my feet are slicker than I expected—my feet slip from under me and I crash flailing into the river. The water’s awful chill hits me at the same time as the Keeper’s piercing shriek, “What are you doing!”
The rocky silt below me begins a slow rolling vibration.
“I—I’m helping.”
“Did I tell you to disturb the water?” the Keeper yells.
Vibrations roll over the water’s surface and grumble under my feet, growl and grow into a terrible shake that takes over the entire shore.
The Keeper heaves the boat out of the water and braces himself.
“What is it?” I ask.
“You woke the river’s beast, you fool,” the Keeper snaps.
One of the Underworld’s monsters. The Texts speak of these beasts, powerful, terrible things that thrive in the darkness, the only creatures that can truly live in this realm.
Just like me.
I pull out my blade and push the Keeper and Miriam back from the shore. I will not let Miriam get hurt in any way because of my failure, not a second time.
The rumbling grows until the river is quivering and harsh waves toss. A scaly head with flat lizard eyes rises slowly from the water, a long slithering neck. The waves toss, splattering shocking cold on my arms and drowning my feet.
A second head stretches out of the water, then a third. As they emerge, I see that all three necks connect to a single body. The beast tilts back onto its thick hind legs and releases a roar that rolls off the sky and shakes the ground. Fangs flash within its stretched mouths.
It storms the shore, takes a swoop at us with a hard whip of its tail. I swing my blade, and catch a few inches of flesh as it tears past me. The beast throws its head back and an angry shriek echoes off the cavernous skies. But when the tail swings back at me a second time, the wound is already pulling back together, leaving only the dark smear of its blood.
A lump hardens in my throat. I tighten my grip on my blade. It’s healing itself. This won’t be easy.
The beast thunders closer, and the Keeper is forced to fend off swooping heads with his staff. He calls to me over their growls. Something about the heads.
One of the heads rushes toward me, and I swing my blade down on it hard, slice through its neck. Hot dark blood rushes over my hands as its head lops to the ground, flailing and hissing. The two remaining heads let out an angry shriek that echoes off the cavernous skies. Victory courses through me warm and rich.
Above the beast’s roars the Keeper yells, “Are you mad? I just told you, don’t touch the heads!”
What?
A dark tingling dread rises inside me. I look back to the beast.
The chopped neck is twitching, pulling apart, splitting itself down the middle, stretching and twisting itself into two full necks. Two new heads are now stemming out from where there used to be one.
I freeze, mesmerized, terrified.
A hissing blur rushes by and latches its teeth into me. A hot thrashing sensation sears down my arm and across my back like lightning. And then, just as fast, the teeth release and the head rushes away.
I stagger back. A deep throbbing sets in between my particles, burning its way inside me. I fall to my knees overwhelmed. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realize I must have dropped my blade.
Pain. This is what the humans must feel. The same primal cry that I have heard from them a thousand times over is now twisting its way out of me. Dumb with sensation, I slump against the ground and catch myself on my hands. It is too much.
As the initial shock of it dies down, questions flood my mind: How can I feel pain here when I never have before? What else is different for me here in the Underworld? How vulnerable am I here, really? Clearly, much more so than in Terath.
A blurred tangle of swooping necks wave overhead. There are four of them now. Each has matching sets of poisonous, painful teeth. I pull my arm into myself on instinct. How can I overcome such a beast? Fear wells up and chokes me.
But the beast is still angry, and already its heads are coming toward me again.
Move, a voice inside me urges, you need to move. I grope over the sand for my blade—fresh, raw shots of pain spindling down my arm from the wound—but I can’t find it.
A hissing sound rushes toward me from behind—I whip around in time to see four vicious serpent heads rushing toward me and duck behind my good arm, brace for more thrashing teeth and searing pain.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, a great primal shriek does.
When I look back, there is a seething split down the monster’s chest, and Miriam is squeezing out from underneath it. My blade is in her hand, covered in dripping dark red up to her elbow.
Already the wound’s edges are quivering, beginning to close. She raises the
blade again and digs into the beast with intense focus. Blood splatters onto the rocks. All four heads rush toward her with angry snarls, and I gasp and reach for her, then flinch as my wound sends new ripples of pain through me. But the Keeper runs forward and fends them off. She works, the blade moving quickly in and out, in and out, the beast flailing and twisting and screeching. A river of thick blood pours from it, and the wails become weaker, the thrashing necks droop.
Finally, Miriam tosses the blade aside and reaches in with her bare hands. She pulls away with all her might and bursts free, holding the beast’s dark, dripping heart in her hands. The creature’s roars die to whimpers, its heads twitch and wail, slowly wilt to nothing as the pool grows below it. We all watch until the last head stops blinking.
When there is nothing left but a limp tangle of necks, Miriam drops the heart to the sand. Then she picks up my blade, rinses it off in the water, and hands it back to me.
I stare at it in her hand.
“You… you killed it.”
She smiles, still breathing heavily.
“We wouldn’t have needed saving if you had listened to me,” the Keeper snaps. “What is wrong with you?”
My eyes drop to my feet. He’s right. “I didn’t know.” How could I have? I whip back toward Miriam. “How did you know?”
“Oh—well—” She flushes red from her ears to her neck.
The Keeper takes advantage of the pause. “Enough! This is no time for stories,” he whips back to me. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
I blink back at him, uncomprehending.
“Did I tell you to help with the boat? Did I tell you to disturb the water?” His shrill voice rises to a yell, his tightly fisted hand shaking his staff. “No!”
“I thought— You said—” But already the details are slipping from me.
“The rules are different here than in Terath. Unpredictable,” he snarls. “The realm can sense you here. Your very presence disrupts it. Your every word, every move sends ripples through the realm. If you want to want to see the light of Terath again, don’t mess with anything.”
He glares at me.
My shoulder throbs. It’s still not healing.
It’s shooting spindles of pain all across my back and down my arm. Pain. And it’s not going away; the wound is not closing. Terror leaks into me with slow understanding. It’s not healing, and it’s not going to heal. Whatever made me so invulnerable in Terath doesn’t work in the Underworld.
Mud Page 10