- Chapter 23






p {text-indent:2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px}
h1 {page-break-before:left}





Back | NextContents
Chapter Twenty-Three
The sea sent him back to the sand spit on the back of a rising wave, which delivered him with a fine boom and a brave showing of foam, withdrawing even as Meri rolled to his feet.
Laughing lightly, he gave a nod to the swelling waters, marking the boats and fishing rigs sweeping toward safe harbor on the incoming tide.
Still smiling, he turned away, fairly skipping across the sand to the rock where he had left his clothes. However long he had slept under the care of the healers, it had not done him as much good as this morning's drowse in the arms of the sea. He felt . . . stronger, less weary—and considerably less sullen. Whether these improvements were indicative of a deeper sea-change, he thought, drying himself with his shirt, remained to be discovered.
It was plain that immersion in the sea had not eradicated the pale scars stitched across his skin. Eye closed, he ran his fingers down his chest, feeling only smooth flesh, beginning to pebble slightly in the breeze. His shiver had nothing to do with the freshening breeze off the water.
"I must have slept an age," he whispered. The breeze snatched the words from his lips and bore them off, up the hill, inland. To the trees. Perhaps, to the trees.
He sighed slightly, and shook out his wet, bedraggled shirt as best he could before dragging it over his head, and pulling on his leather pants. He would have to draw another set of clothes from stores and put these in for a thorough cleaning.
"No more sense than to wear wood's clothes down to the sea," he grumbled to himself, hearing his mother's voice behind his own. "Small wonder they let you sleep so long, Meripen Tree-son. They were hoping you would sprout some sense."
He cinched his belt, made sure of the elitch wand, and picked up his boots. He'd take the common path up to the Hold, and—
Behind him, a wave struck the sand with a crash and a roar. Meri spun, the leading edge washing over his feet, and the whole wave receding as suddenly as it had come, leaving wet-combed sand, and an—object, perfectly round, perfectly white—and perfectly dry.
He did not hesitate—one did not refuse a sea-gift, no matter how chancy such gifts were known to be. Darting forward, he snatched the object from the wet sand, its dry-as-bone surface rough against his palm, and danced back from the next wave, all the way to dry sand before opening his fingers and looking at what the sea had brought him.
The wand flared to white heat against his side, proving yet again that the elitch was the wisest intelligence in the Vaitura. Meri—Meri merely stared, breath-caught, and wondered what the sea might ask of him, for placing such a treasure into his hand.
Sunshields were never found; they were always given—by the Sea Wise, rarely; by the sea, more rarely still. For all they appeared to be merely dry, untenanted shell, each housed a living intelligence, acute, reclusive, and occasionally whimsical. Meri had heard it said that the spirit of the sea itself worked through the shells. He supposed that this was possible in much the same way that any single elitch tree seemed to possess the knowledge and wisdom of all elitch trees.
And, as elitch trees demanded courtesy, so did this strange token. Meri drew a careful breath.
"Welcome," he said, trying not to sound as ambivalent as he felt.
The elitch wand warmed approvingly against his side.
The sun shield made no sign at all.
 
 
"Elyd!"
Becca was on her knees, sobbing as she groped for his wrist, his flesh still warm, stone-gray eyes staring sightless, and there was nothing beneath her questing fingers, nothing—
"No! Elyd!"
Her voice locked, and quite abruptly she stood, tears running her face, turned and walked out of the snug little room, leaving him where he lay and her clothes scattered on the straw-covered floor. Into the color-soaked night she walked, naked, sure-footed, and silent. Inside the house, she moved down hallways, through shimmering curtains of light, and up the ramp to her rooms.
Altimere awaited her by the bath, his hair streaming like sunlight across the dark shoulders of his dressing gown, his whole form haloed in silver.
Smiling, he opened his arms. Becca went to him, raising her face. He kissed her, deeply; the liquid fire coursed up her backbone and along her veins, leaving her chill and shaking.
She was swooning against his arm when he broke the kiss, and stroked her face with his long, cold fingers.
"Why do you weep, zinchessa?"
The question unlocked her voice, and she began to sob anew. "Elyd! Oh, Altimere, he is dead! I—I killed him!"
"Indeed, indeed," he murmured, leading her toward the bath. "And most gloriously. I stand in awe of you, Rebecca Beauvelley. You are more than ever I had hoped to discover."
"Altimere—Elyd is dead. He was my friend and—"
"He expired at the peak of his joy, insofar as one of his sort might be said to experience joy. Into your bath now, there's a good child. As deaths go, it was a kind one, and worthy of a friend."
"I—" The water enveloped Becca, blood warm and smelling strongly of roses, driving away the lingering odors of straw, and of lust.
"I don't understand you," she whispered, as Altimere picked up the sponge and began to bathe her.
"No, I see that you do not." The sponge moved in hypnotic circles on her back. "All that you need to understand is that you have exceeded my expectations and that I am very pleased." Altimere's voice was slow and liquid, filling her head, drowning her horror in contentment.
"Did you enjoy yourself, my child?"
"Yes," she murmured. "Yes, I—enjoyed myself very much."
"Good." The sponge moved over her shoulder, circled her breast, and moved down her belly. Becca lay back in the water, drowsing.
"You must let go of this shame," Altimere said, his voice smooth and honeyed. "You have put yourself and your kest into my keeping, and I use both to further my goals. Oh, you will be the darling of the High Fey. Who can resist you?"
Becca struggled. "I—will they all die?"
"Hush. Hush. They will not die. They will scarcely know what it is that they have given away."
"But, Elyd—"
"Elyd Chonlauf died because he was weak. He could not resist the meld, and once he had melded, he lacked the strength to withdraw."
"Why?" Becca whispered, looking up into Altimere's amber eyes. "Why did he die?"
"Because you absorbed his kest, and left him powerless to survive. Be still now and let me finish bathing you."
Becca drifted, awake only enough to come out of the water when she was told to do so, to stand while he dried her and wrapped her in her dressing gown, to sit before her mirror.
She watched him in the glass as he braided her hair, his dark gown disappearing into the dark room, his hair lifting and spreading as if he floated in a pool of black water.
"What happened to it?" she mumbled as he laid her down in the bed.
"Happened to what, my treasure?" He pulled the sheets up around her shoulders and looked tenderly into her eyes.
"Elyd's kest. You said I . . . absorbed . . . it?"
"Indeed you did." He stroked her cheek, smiling softly. "As to what you did with it—why, child, you gave it to me." He leaned closer and blew across her eyes.
"Sleep now," he whispered.
And she did.
 
Back | NextFramed