Closing his eyes halfway, he walked out beyond the annex, away from the water basilica, across the edge of sand and into the arms of the sea.
He was fighting nausea every step of the way.
33
OFF THE NORTHWESTERN COAST, NEAR TRAEG
For his first experiment in walking the sea, Achmed chose what he believed was a relatively short trek north.
Along the twisting coastline the beaches grew rockier, even out into the sea itself, and rather than flat land beyond, the farther north he traveled, the more he found sea cliffs on sandspits, jutting out into the open sea.
Somewhere along the curves of the rocky coastline was the tiny harbor town of Traeg, a word Rhapsody had once told him meant where the wind lives in the language of the indigenous Lirin from long ago.
And, in Traeg, Achmed had someone to whom he wanted to say goodbye.
His initial foray into the water had been terrifying. He had, long ago, fallen into a quick-running river in full armor on horseback, and had come as close to death by drowning as he decided it was actually possible to do. It had been an experience that had engendered his consummate dislike and secret fear of the water, an element that had always served to thwart his kirai during his days when he still had the heartbeats of every soul on the Island where he lived beating in his skin, making his victims difficult, if not impossible, to track.
But now, there seemed to be a beacon of a sort for him, a deep tolling of what sounded like the echo of MacQuieth’s heartbeat, which once rang like a great bell beneath the waves when the hero had been alive. It seemed to be attuned to the new sword in his hand, or the second sheath of the bandolier, so Achmed followed the quiet tolling of the bell blindly, hoping it might lead him to where he needed to go. Having the elemental sword of water deign to allow him to carry it might have given him the ability to walk beneath the surface of the sea, but its presence did not initially overcome the fear he had always felt in or around it.
He had discovered, to his dismay, that beneath the waves, Kirsdarke did not maintain its rigidity of blade, but rather only its hilt was solid. What on the land had been an arm-and-a-half of steel with blue scrollwork in the hands of anyone other than the Kirsdarkenvar disappeared when he took it into the water, though it was still a savage blade if it was needed beneath the waves. So rather than a reassuring weapon with a long blade, in the ocean he was carrying nothing but a sword hilt, at least until he figured out how the weapon worked.
It had not helped that, when last in Traeg, or nearby, he had been thrown into the water again, this time from atop just such a cliff on a sandspit jutting out into the sea, by the man whose regiment had brutalized Rhapsody long ago in the old world.
That soldier, known by the silly appellation Michael, the Wind of Death, had not achieved an extended life span as the Cymrians had, because he had not traveled with the exodus, being on the losing side in the Seren War several hundred years prior. Rather, he had made a bargain with a F’dor demon in a place nearer to where the Island of Serendair had once been, a seaside city called Argaut on the continent of Northland, to serve as the demon’s voluntary host. It was an arrangement that had granted the human, Michael, a seemingly immortal existence, and the demon the body of a soldier of some strength and leadership skills.
The Wind of Death had been the bearer of one of the two swords Achmed was bringing into the sea with him, Tysterisk, the elemental weapon of air. At the point when MacQuieth, Ashe, and he had Michael backed up against the edge of the seacliff, the demon, caught in the Thrall ritual that should have immobilized it, had pointed the sword at him and severed the ropes of wind with which the ritual had bound its poisonous spirit.
And, with a single gesture, he had blasted Achmed from his feet and over the side of a cliff close to a thousand feet tall, into the sea.
You thought you could contain me with a Thrall ritual? I command the wind, you fool.
Blessedly, Achmed remembered little of what happened after that. He had suffered nightmares for a few centuries in which he was drowning in a variety of water sources, including one particularly odd one where the water source was a pitcher of wine. Eventually he had prevailed upon Rhapsody to use her Naming lore to help ease the memory from his mind.
But while he could remember little to nothing of his travails in the sea, he had a very clear memory of a warm cliff-top tavern, where the ale was good, the food was edible, and the barkeep was a First Generation Cymrian who had known and loved Rhapsody like a daughter in the old world.
And this man had also known MacQuieth, the water sword’s most famous bearer.
So Achmed had taken his life in his hands, after leaving the water basilica, and had waded out into the sea outside the harbor. The initial feel of the tide going over his head evoked all the terrors he had been fighting since the bridge incident, but within a short time he had learned to open his eyes beneath the surface and appreciate the quiet swish of the realm of endless blue-green into which he had ventured.
He also found that the more securely he gripped Kirsdarke’s blade, the calmer he felt.
So he walked out beyond the breakers to the first place where the sandy bottom dropped off, and, after getting past his panic, hung in the drift, his hair floating wildly about his face, letting the sword breathe for him, until he felt he could adjust successfully, then turned north and followed the coastline, popping up to the surface to check his progress every now and then.
He was disappointed every time.
Finally, when he came to the surface and was buffeted violently by the wind, he decided to come to shore and see if he recognized anything.
He didn’t, but remembered that the first and last time he had come to Traeg, it had been from inland, so he and Ashe had approached it from above.
His spirits rose as he came out of the water to find that, as a result of one or both of the ancient swords of elemental power that he was carrying, his clothing was almost dry within moments.
The coastline was littered with enormous rocks and boulders, a good deal of flotsam and jetsam, pieces of driftwood and broken ships—and sea lions.
He had not realized what the massive area of dark slag between two enormous rock outcroppings really was until he had set them off by accident, earning himself the necessity of a hasty retreat, chased by earsplitting barks and an utter loss of dignity.
Just when he was seriously reconsidering his mission, it occurred to him that the man he sought, a barkeep named Barney, as all barkeeps were traditionally named, was probably the only one of his profession still alive from the Island of Serendair, assuming he hadn’t died in all the time that had passed since Achmed had last seen him.
Given that he hadn’t seen the man for over a thousand years, it suddenly occurred to Achmed that he might have come a long, salty, seaweed-filled way for nothing.
Fortunately, both Rhapsody and Ashe had kept in touch with Barney and his family, and Rhapsody had kept him updated on such things, even when he refused to listen or had begged her not to, so he was relatively certain he had heard the man’s name and his status as being alive relatively recently.
He leaned back as the sun was setting over the crashing waves of the shoreline and beyond, and loosed his kirai, seeking the man’s heartbeat.
Water had never been his friend when he was trying to find a pulse, so he headed away from the shore, climbing a mountain pass that he had come across, when the flicker rushed across the surface of his skin, and locked itself on to his own heartbeat high at the top of a jagged, rocky cliff.
Achmed let out a deep breath of frustration and followed the rhythm up the side of the cliff.
After a long haul upward, and a loss of the sun into the western sea, he came upon a small establishment that looked very similar to one he remembered in the city of Easton in the old world, and another he had drunk in when looking for Rhapsody.
A sign out front proclaimed THE HAT AND FEATHERS.
He shook the remaining water from h
is garments and went inside.
The pub was full of fishermen preparing to head home for the night, so he found a small corner and waited for the crowd to pass, then approached the barman, clearly not the fellow he was looking for, who was wiping the ale off the bartop.
“Can I help ya, sir?” the man said, not looking up from his chore.
“I hope so,” Achmed said as pleasantly as he was able; the constant vibrations of the sea battering against his skin-web, the sensitive nerve endings and veins that scored the surface of almost his entire body, and hunger, was making him irritable. “Is Old Barney about?”
“Who’s askin’?”
Achmed gritted his teeth. “An old friend. Kindly relay my inquiry. Please.”
The young barkeep looked up and blinked, then blanched.
“Stay right there,” he said, and headed for the back room.
A few moments later, the tavern was filled with a host of other employees and regulars that emerged from every corner, silently making their presence known. Achmed merely took off his sodden gloves, which had not benefited as his clothes had from the drying that came with exposure to the swords, and silently wrung the water from them onto the tavern floor.
A few moments later, some modestly heavy footfalls came tromping down the inner staircase, and the silver-haired tavern owner that Achmed had drunk and talked with a thousand years before appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking much the same but a little grayer, a little heavier, and a little slower.
“’Ey, Barney,” said one of the bigger men in the gathering, “this gent says ’e’s a friend o’ yourn.”
Old Barney came closer, staring. Then his eyes opened wide.
“Well, yes he is,” he said, the sound of genuine delight in his voice. “Thank you, my friends, but all’s well. Back to your business.”
He came hurriedly over to Achmed and bowed politely. “Majesty.”
The Bolg king shook his head. “Please. Achmed. Now and always.”
“Come with me,” Old Barney said jovially, gesturing toward the same room in the back of the tavern where he and Ashe had met with the elderly man a millennium before, described back then as a “no-ears” room. “What’s your pleasure?”
“Ale and bread, and if it’s available, soup, as long as it’s not made with mutton.”
“Can accommodate you on both accounts,” Barney said, signaling to the barkeeper. “So much better than last time you came to visit. We had mostly survived the burnings that took down the rest of the coast, but as I recall, I had little to offer you.”
“I don’t get out much,” Achmed said, following the barkeep to the back room. “I had nothing to compare it to—I remember it being a good time. Well, except for the burnings and Rhapsody’s kidnapping. But other than that, a good time.”
Once there, the tavern owner pulled out a chair for Achmed and went to the door to take the tray the serving girl had brought back with two tankards, two bowls of a rich-smelling soup, and a loaf of hot bread.
“Have a seat, Majes—Ach—oh, I’m so sorry. One doesn’t feel right to you, the other doesn’t feel right to me.” He put the bread, the soup, and a tankard down in front of the Bolg king.
Achmed waved his hand dismissively and seized the tankard, putting it to his lips.
Barney’s face brightened as he took a seat opposite. “So how is Rhapsody? I haven’t heard from her in quite a while.”
Achmed took the tankard away from his mouth. He stared at the tavernkeeper silently.
Barney’s smile faded. “Majesty?”
Achmed sighed, then took another draught.
“Please, please tell me—”
“She’s dead,” Achmed said between swallows.
“Wha—what? The Lady Cymrian?—is—?”
“Dead, yes. Several leaders of all levels are dead, including her husband.”
Barney turned white and pushed his chair back.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Achmed said, setting the tankard down on the table board. “I don’t have words at the moment for any of this. I assume it will be heralded sooner or later by her son, and I would appreciate it if you would let it be disseminated that way. But my heart is too sore and my brain too tired to know what to say. I respect you, and I know you loved her. So I’m telling you, rather than putting it off or lying to you. She’s dead. It was painless, from what I can tell. I don’t know any more than that as far as what will be done with the leadership. I’m sure the family will have it well in hand before the Cymrian Council meets in my lands next year. Thankfully, I will not be there either.”
“Where—where will you be, Majesty?”
Achmed tore a piece off the bread loaf. “That depends on what you tell me.”
“I—I—”
“What can you tell me about MacQuieth? Other than what you told me a thousand years ago.”
The old barkeeper blinked. “Majesty—”
“I saw him die,” Achmed said, dipping his bread in the soup, which was a hearty beef stock with carrots and potatoes, a great improvement over the thin cabbage water he had been served the last time he had been here. “I heard his heartbeat wink out in the sea; it used to toll like a great bell, and I heard it fall silent.”
He chewed on the bread and swallowed, then leaned forward.
“But then, I had always assumed he was dead until you told me otherwise that night,” he said, his mismatched eyes gleaming intensely. “The legends say that after he landed with what was left of the Second Fleet in Manosse, he went to the end of the peninsula of Sithgraid, waded into the water to his waist or knees, and stood vigil for his son, Hector, who had been left behind in the place of guardianship MacQuieth felt he should have had.”
“All that is true.”
The Bolg king tore off another piece of bread. “And then, supposedly, when the Island was destroyed, he went into the sea and was never heard from again. But you knew otherwise, Barney. You knew. ‘There are many places in the world for a man to hide if he does not wish to be found,’ you said. And now I am about to do something very similar—though it is very much not to be told to any random kings, Firbolg or otherwise, that may come passing through your tavern.”
Barney’s face, which had gone gray at the news about the sovereigns, brightened a little.
“Understood,” he said.
“Hateful as the water is to me—and believe me, it’s hateful—I have found myself in need of traveling through it, rather than upon it. I also will be taking this with me.”
He swallowed his most recent hunk of bread and reached over his head, quickly drawing Kirsdarke.
Barney backed up in his chair.
“As you can see, it does not run like elemental water in my hand, as it did when MacQuieth held it, or even Ashe,” Achmed went on, sheathing the sword and going back to his soup.
“It is always interesting when you come by, Majesty,” Barney said, only half humorously.
“No doubt. So if there is anything you can tell me about MacQuieth, or anything else you might think would be helpful, now’s the time.”
Barney exhaled sadly. “Forgive me, Majesty. I am still stunned and heartsick.”
“I understand. So am I. More than you know. But in only the slightest of roundabout ways, what I am doing is something that would honor her, and advance the safety of her children and their children and so on, so if there is anything you can tell me, please do.”
The old man nodded. “Well, I can say that I have not seen him since he went into the sea with the demon,” he said, taking a draught himself. “But it’s safe to say that, after almost two thousand years of guarding the depths, as he did after the exodus, there is still a great part of his soul in it.”
“Can you elaborate?” Achmed put his tankard down and listened intently.
Barney shrugged. “Sometimes things wash up on the beach that seem, well, unlikely to do so,” he said nervously. “Things that are often, well, opportune, if you know what I mean.”
> “Interesting.”
“Did you ever see him draw the strange designs that he used to in the sand?”
“Yes.” Achmed took another drink. “When we asked him what he was drawing, he said ‘whatever the sea tells me.’”
“At the same time of day that the, er, opportune objects or information tends to show up, there is occasionally a drawing when the tide goes out, in the sand,” Barney said. “I cannot make head nor tail of them most of the time, and I have sat watch to see if any human being is doing it, but no one has ever come. The sea pulls back, and there is a drawing in the sand. That’s all.”
“What time of the day is that?”
“Usually just before dawn—earlier than even the fishermen are out. And occasionally late at night, on my way home, I see something. But it’s a rarity, especially these days. It is more wishful thinking than sensible thought to believe that MacQuieth is still guarding the depths. But they say he has always intervened with the tides around Gaematria, and I am not certain, but it was also said that once he returned to Tartechor, the domed city of the Mythlin, the Firstborn race of water, that vanished in the heat from the Sleeping Child when it rose, and took the Island to the depths with it.”
Achmed nodded silently. He had heard MacQuieth tell the tale himself, in the context of explaining how he had gone in search of his son’s body after the Cataclysm, and had found only undersea mountains of desolation and destruction where Serendair had been, and nothing at all of Tartechor.
“Rhapsody used to blither about the lore of the soul,” he said finally, finishing the bread, the soup, and his ale. “She believed that it was a far more flexible, widespread entity than most races that believe in the soul tend to define it. Perhaps that is true of the sea and MacQuieth.”
“It’s pretty to think so,” said Barney.
Achmed pushed his chair back. “I don’t suppose you have a room to let?”
“For you, Majesty? Of course, though it’s poor lodging.”
“If it has a bed and peace and quiet, it will be like being in a palace. Thank you.”