Chapter 12 – Fishing

 

The windshield wipers splashed vainly against the driving rain. I could tell Kurtis was tense, but I knew it wasn’t because of the weather. He sat leaning forward, peering out into the blinding grey that no car lights or wipers seemed to drive away.

“So much rain,” Damian muttered.

I sighed and leaned my head against the window. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kurtis’s book on the seat beside me, face down where I had tossed it earlier. I picked it up, thumbing through the pages. Strange names and lofty dialogue swam before my eyes, bits of descriptions enthralled me, but out of their context they held little meaning for me.

I wished I had the time to read the book in its entirety, but as I flipped through the pages, a slim sheaf of folded paper slipped out onto my lap. I started to close the book to examine the papers, but just as I did, a highlighted passage on the page leapt out at me. Something about the sundering of the west. I scanned it once and then again, puzzled. The book slipped from my fingers.

“Mer!”

I glanced up, jolted. We had finally made it back to town, threading a slow path through the river that had once been Main Street. There was the corner shop, looking just the same as ever. I glimpsed Mr. Dansy’s face at the window – his expression seemed to attempt communication, but I couldn’t decipher it through the downpour. I stuffed the papers into my pouch to read later, then leapt out of the car as soon as Kurtis put it in park. Mr. Dansy’s face had disappeared, but a cold tearing feeling clutched my stomach.

“Let me go in alone,” I said as Kurtis and Damian joined me. “If I’m too long, come after me. But let me go in first.”

Damian and Kurtis nodded uncertainly. I headed across the intersection to the shop. The little bell on the door chimed dully as always when I entered, and Mr. Dansy glanced up from behind his counter, so completely unreadable I couldn’t tell if he was uneasy. The place felt empty, eerily so. I found myself peering around, hoping to see other customers there. I didn’t. Even the old radio languished mute. The only sound in the shop was the rain pattering against the glass.

“Well,” Mr. Dansy said. “How’s your family, Merry?”

He was nervous. He rarely asked about my family, and never called me Merry.

“Your brothers gone off fishing yet this summer?” He thumbed at a stack of fliers in front of him, saying, “You know, got a good sale on bait right now. Good sale…not for the bait, of course. Trouble with bait is, it doesn’t know its own doom.”

Was he trying to tell me something? I swallowed hard, dropping back a step.

“And, worse yet, it can’t tell the fish about the hook it’s hiding. It just…wriggles there all helpless, you know, luring in the fish…”

“Mr. Dansy,” I choked.

“I’m sorry, darlin’.”

I knew there would be no point trying to escape. “Where are they?”

“They knew you’d figure something about me, that you’d try to call. I couldn’t get to you in time! I’m trapped here. And they knew that’d pull you in. Now they’ve got you trapped here too.”

“Mr. Dansy, the portal…”

He made a low, miserable sound, putting his head in his hands. “I’m no portal guardian. I couldn’t be. I’m not that sort. I watch it, that’s all. All I could ever do was tell Davhur if anyone came or went, and when. I can’t stop a passage, not from this side.”

I felt wretched. Standing there, dripping wet and exhausted, I realized my error. No going back now. I’d completely failed. Desperate, I glanced outside, wanting somehow to tell Damian and Kurtis to stay away. But already they were coming toward the shop. I went to the window, tried calling to them, waved at them frantically to gesture them away. That only made them quicken their pace. I put my hand on the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. I lurched around in terror.

“Mr. Dansy, where are they? What is Pyelthan? What is this thing?” I was shrieking now, holding the circlet clenched in my fist.

I lowered it to my side suddenly, feeling that cold rush of inevitability. Damian and Kurtis burst through the door. It slammed shut behind them with the hollow, dead sound of finality, and though I couldn’t hear it lock I knew it wouldn’t open again. The whole world swayed.

“You should have stayed,” I whispered. “I tried to tell you to stay away.”

“Oh, Merelin,” Damian said, helpless.

I hardly heard him. I stood staring intently at nothing, painfully aware of the tightness of my forehead, my throat, my hands. Every ounce of strength I could muster I flung out in a vain attempt to hold back the Ungulion. Closer…drawing closer… Pointless. But I tried. I had to. I tried to bar them from the shop, thinking them away with furious concentration as if somehow that would work. I knew it didn’t. My knees turned watery.

I reached out suddenly and seized Damian’s hands, pressed the coin into his palm. Stared at him intently, pleading. Felt their presence building around me. And then I saw them. One strode out before me, and with his grotesque rotting hand thrust Damian back. He collapsed into Kurtis, and both of them fell against the door with the force. I couldn’t see either of them now.

Quavering grey gloom enveloped me. Chanting, low and incomprehensible, droned into my mind like an opiate. Everything pulsed and vibrated to its rhythm. I felt two hands grip my shoulders, the bony fingers prodding into the flesh by my neck. The nails slid on my skin, and I felt a trickle of warmth down my back. The shadow drew in closer, until I could no longer hear the shrieking wind or pounding hail.

“I’m sorry, Yatol…”

I sank to the ground.

Shadow surrounded me. My gaze was caught and held by an Ungulion’s eyes, the empty black stare lost in a dead glow. I heard his voice within my head, rattling desolate threats and cajoling with void promises. I couldn’t tear away. All had vanished from my vision but the hollows of his eyes, the lifeless blood-hue reflecting some hellish despair. All I heard was his voice, his commands hammering relentlessly in my mind. The weight of them beat me down.

Then through it all I heard a soft noise, far away, as though in another world…a shout of rage and grief. Damian. No, no. The Ungulion tore his gaze away, his words fell silent. He straightened back and whirled about, fingers outstretched. My tongue felt thick and numb. No sound would rise in my throat. I wanted to warn Damian, to call out, but my body wouldn’t obey. It shrank against the ground in hideous torpor. Something deep inside of me screamed out, railed against my body, lashed out against the cage of murk that caved in over me. My heart called out to Yatol and Mykyl. Silence.

Suddenly, dazzling light. A single ray pierced through the black, tinged the edges of the gloom. An enraged chorus of shrieks and wailing rose from the shadow, and the greyness churned and writhed away. Then the radiance broke through. I felt myself lifted off the ground, then all faded.

* * *

Someone was talking. The murmuring voice seemed to blend with the radiance dancing on my eyelids, and I couldn’t distinguish who spoke or what he said. But I forced my eyelids to move – a faint twitch when I meant to open them. The voice fell silent, and I felt a firm but gentle grasp on my hand.

“Mer! Can you hear me?” Damian, anxious but hopeful.

“Speak further,” Yatol said. “Call her back.”

His voice sounded strange, heavily accented. Wait. Yatol…and Damian? Talking to each other? That’s not possible… I struggled to move, to sit up or speak, but an inhuman whimper was all I could force from my lips.

“She tried to talk!” Damian cried. “Didn’t you hear her? She can hear us! Thank God!”

“I knew she’d pull through. Strong kid.” Was that Kurtis now? He sounded nervous. “How’re you feeling, Damian?”

“Better and better. I’m just glad…”

His voice trailed off. Glad about what? If only I could wake up…

A warm tingling pain flowed through my body, like when your feet start getting their feeling back after falling asleep. My fingers tightened, clenching a handful of sand that trickled through and left me digging my nails into my palms.

“She finally seems to be getting the life back in her,” Yatol said, his voice no longer accented.

“Yes, she will recover now.” I recognized this voice as well – Enhyla, calm and reassuring. “And you? You have not said a word, yet you and she bore the worst of the battle. Take a little of this.”

“I don’t need it. I’ll be all right. I need to sleep, but I’ll be all right.”

“I will not permit you to sleep until you have drunk this! Yatol, I know what you faced. You’ve faced it alone before, and it’s beginning to take its toll on you. Come, drink.”

My lips felt numb and thick, but I forced them to move. “Drink it, Yatol…”

“What did she say?” Damian asked.

Finally I managed to force my eyes open. Enhyla’s hut. Blurry, I could see Damian crouching beside me, glancing over his shoulder at the back wall where Yatol stood with Enhyla. Yatol said nothing, only took the shallow dish from Enhyla and lifted it to his lips. He winced as he swallowed, and Enhyla smiled grimly. I turned my gaze away and saw Kurtis hunched against the near wall, hugging his legs and looking more like an overwhelmed child than a college professor.

So. Here we all were.

I might have been excited by the thought, but somehow all I felt was disappointment. Not at being back in Arah Byen – I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. I was disappointed in myself. I’d gone back with a mission, and I failed. Didn’t learn anything. Walked into a trap. Put Yatol and Damian in danger.

I gathered all my strength and forced myself into a half-sitting position, bracing myself on my arms while my vision clouded and refocused. Yatol came to my side, and I found myself sitting upright, supported by both him and Damian.

“Yatol…what’s the matter with me?” I murmured.

Yatol motioned to Enhyla, who refilled the dish and brought it over.

“Drink this. It tastes terrible, but it will make you feel better.”

“Is this what he made you drink? What’s it for?”

“It will restore some of your strength,” Enhyla said. “With their touch the Ungulion can drain away the very life of a man. And the effects remain long after the battle has ended. Sometimes it takes only one touch to work this slow, foul slaying. But for stronger souls, they can endure it twice, maybe three times before it begins. When it does, it will slowly sap his strength away until he falls asleep, and then he will wake no more.”

I turned horrified eyes from him to Yatol, but he only held the dish out to me, eyes lowered, face perfectly still. I took the dish and swallowed down its contents, grimacing at the acrid taste.

“What was he saying?” Damian said. “What was that stuff you drank? Merelin, what language are you speaking?”

I stared blankly at him, not comprehending his question. And suddenly I realized why Yatol sometimes spoke with an accent and sometimes without. I couldn’t tell any difference between the languages in my mind, but Damian and Kurtis were as helpless as I’d been my first night in this world. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It just bubbled out of me, and I saw Yatol laughing silently beside me.

“Sorry, Damian,” I said. “I didn’t even realize it. It’s Arathi, the language of Arah Byen. Don’t ask how I learned it – it just came to me. Literally. I didn’t know I was speaking it at first.”

I explained to him about the medicine, and then glanced over at Kurtis. He was staring in awe at Enhyla’s hut. I didn’t see him the same way now as I had when we sat in Gorley Hall only a few hours before. Somehow, here, I felt less like a child. Like I had some kind of status or title that put me on an equal footing with him – or a higher place. And his name, which I couldn’t force myself to say before, now rolled easily off my tongue.

“Kurtis? Are you okay?”

He shifted a wide grey-eyed gaze to me. “This place, it’s real. Just like you said. I never knew if I could believe it. And after that…that horrible…”

I’d almost forgotten. His words jarred the memory back into my thoughts. And just like that a great cold-water bucket of anxiety dumped over me.

“What happened in Mr. Dansy’s shop?” I asked Yatol. “Is Mr. Dansy all right? How did we all end up here? Damian and Kurtis went through the portal?” The thought disturbed me strangely. “But Kurtis won’t be able to handle it, will he? I mean, this is the only time for him, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It was the only choice we had.”

He turned away abruptly, leaving the hut with Enhyla following after him.

“Damian? Will you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

I’d forgotten, again. Trying to keep two languages straight was confusing. Sometimes one was bad enough.

“I asked Yatol what happened, back there. He just said you and Kurtis coming here was the only choice he had, but that was all.”

Kurtis shook his head fiercely. “I can’t think about it. My God, how awful it was!”

Damian nodded, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before he spoke. He kept his eyes fastened on the fire, his expression void.

“These things came in,” he said, carefully. “They started surrounding you, and I felt like my legs were paralyzed. You know how in dreams, when you’re trying to run or move and your legs won’t obey? It felt like that, and I had to convince myself it was all real. Then the wind picked up, and it sounded like there was going to be a tornado or something. There was hail and lightning, and the noise was just deafening.”

“They were Ungulion. Could you hear them?”

“Hear them?” He hesitated. “Not physically, no.”

“You felt it, though,” Kurtis broke in. “You could feel it in your mind, even though you knew they weren’t speaking to you.”

“Exactly. It was the most horrible thing, like it could drive you mad. Then, one of them pushed you out of our sight…”

He bit his lower lip, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry or upset. When his eyes hardened and flashed, I knew it was both, that the anger and the grief were the same.

“I knew you’d given it to me to keep it safe, but I did the only thing I could think of. I thought they were going to kill you, so I showed them that I had it. It distracted the Ungulion enough to make him leave you alone. Then, I don’t really know what happened next. There was this huge burst of light, and…Yatol was it? Well, he was there, somehow…”

“I’ll never forget that,” Kurtis said. “He was standing there and the whole force of them moved in on him and Damian. But then Damian was gone, and then I must have passed out or something. I woke up here. Damian was here already. Then, it seemed like ages later, but all I saw was more light, and then you and Yatol were here. And the older man ran into the light, and we heard what seemed like a lot of voices, then the light was gone and we’ve been trying ever since to bring you two back.”

I frowned. “Damian, they came at you?”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the little circle. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it here. I doubt I would if Yatol hadn’t shown up just then.”

I took Pyelthan from him, holding it briefly before slipping it back into my pouch.

“I’m so sorry, Damian. I’m sorry you got dragged into this. You should never have been made to take that passage. I chose it, but you didn’t have a choice.”

I met his gaze, and realized it wasn’t true. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes said it clearly enough – he did choose it. I nodded, then turned my attention to Kurtis.

“You too, Kurtis. I wish I could have left you ignorant of all of this.”

Kurtis relinquished his death grip on his legs and came – awkwardly and unbalanced – to sit by Damian and me.

“Don’t apologize, Merelin. This is just so surreal. But, in some strange way, I think I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. If we can help you in any way, you know we would do it, don’t you?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said miserably. I glanced toward the doorway, the ivy tendrils now hanging still. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait here?” Damian said with a short laugh. “You don’t think we’d go wandering off, do you?”

I smiled and pushed through the green curtain. I ran a little way into the forest, stopping every few steps to listen for Yatol’s voice. With dusk drawing near, the shadows under the trees deepened and I couldn’t see anything clearly. I thought about calling out for him, but I’d just opened my mouth when I felt a presence behind me. A subtle light framed my arms, silver-blue. My heart leapt, and I spun around and collapsed on my knees in the same motion. And suddenly I found myself in tears.

“Mykyl!”

Mykyl placed a gentle hand on my head – gentle as a bolt of lightning. An icy shock of power rushed through me, then a sort of calmness, stilling me.

“Child, do not weep!”

“Is Yatol all right? I don’t know where he went.”

“He is speaking to Enhyla. Do not be troubled.”

“How did he know? He came… We would have been lost if he hadn’t!” I thought a moment, gazing up at him. “We all would have been lost.”

“He heard you,” Mykyl said with a radiant smile.

“Heard me? But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even call out to Damian, and he was right in front of me!”

“You called out to him in your mind, and to me.”

I remembered that. It made no sense, but I had to believe him. Somehow my desperate cries had touched the mind of someone worlds away.

“You didn’t come too, did you?”

“At the last, I did. Onethyl went before, and took your brother and the young scholar while Yatol held the portal against the Ungulion. But neither of you had strength to wait until he could return.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

It seemed a pathetic expression of my gratitude, but Mykyl lifted two of his wings to the sky and the whole forest seemed to brighten for a moment. Then it faded, and Mykyl lifted me to my feet.

“Go. It was not me you were seeking, and Enhyla has left him to his thoughts.”

He stretched out one glimmering arm. As I turned away, I felt a shock of cold darkness surround me and realized he had gone. I picked my way through the soft foliage and soon found Yatol, sitting with his back to me on the smooth trunk of a fallen tree. He had his chin on his fists, pensive. I hesitated when I saw him. Maybe I should just let him be.

“You were looking for me?” he asked suddenly.

I stepped back in surprise, and then went to sit next to him. “I didn’t make that much noise, did I?”

He smiled but said nothing.

“Mykyl said I would find you here. Yatol, thank you for what you did. I never imagined you would hear me calling you. I thought it was the end…”

“Of course I heard you.” He glanced at me sidelong. “It’s a gift.”

“That you can hear me like that?”

“That you can speak to me like that, and that I can hear it.”

“Could Enhyla, or any of the others?”

“Tyhlaur, perhaps, if he wished. Davhur – your father – could. And he knew you would be able to.”

“How?”

He took my left hand and turned it over, pushing back the leather bracer as far as it would go. “Because you bore the sign of the gift at your birth, as did he. As do I.”

I stared down at the faint red mark on my wrist. I’d always thought it was just a weird birthmark, like a curling backwards ‘y.’ I used to pretend it had mysterious significance, and here I discovered that it really did. The thought made me shiver. Almost as much as the feeling of Yatol’s strong hand clasping mine. Still clasping mine. I kept my hand perfectly still. If I moved, he would probably let go, and I really didn’t want him to.

“Does Damian have it?”

“Not quite, but he has other gifts.” He shot me a scrutinizing glance, then gently released my hand. “Why did you give him Pyelthan?”

“I wanted to keep it safe. I knew they thought I had it. I guess I just hoped that they would overwhelm me and take me back to Arah Byen, and then discover that I didn’t have it. And by then Damian could have hidden it somewhere.”

“That was a brave sacrifice.”

The words came slow and halting, then Yatol furrowed his brow and clenched his jaw hard. I stared at him curiously. I wanted to take his hand again, but couldn’t get the nerve.

“What’s wrong?”

He fixed his gaze on the gentle swaying of the tree boughs. “Your father once did the same, but when he returned to Arah Byen there was no one to come to his aid. And the foolish boy who should have been guarding the portal left it undefended at the last.”

He stood abruptly and vanished into the gathering dark.