The Forgotten Stone, page 28
“Please. Up until now you’ve been like a fish out of water even in water, and in fact anytime we are within a hundred leagues of water. I don’t know how you get up the courage to drink enough to survive.”
Enouim raised her eyebrows. “Okay, that sounds a bit harsh. Can we all agree that’s just a little exaggerated?”
“A smidgeon,” Mereámé agreed, a smile flickering across her face.
“This isn’t the time.” Kilith nodded toward the mouth of the tunnel. It extended another twenty feet, and bats had begun to crowd the opening, waiting for them to emerge. “They may grow impatient if we don’t come up with a plan soon.”
“The river certainly seems to have been friendly to us thus far,” Vadik said.
“Friendly to you, maybe,” Gabor murmured darkly.
“Fine, sure, so the river hates you and loves Enouim,” Vadik conceded. “And we were all shocked that Gabor wasn’t the most likable fellow in it. He’s just such a ray of sunshine. But once we picked our jaws up off the floor, we still recognized the river as our best bet for safe passage.”
Gabor rolled his eyes but said nothing.
Baird snickered.
“I think you’re right on this,” Oloren said. “Where else are we to go? I don’t know about you, but I am nowhere near ready to get eaten by bats. There are so many better ways to die.”
“We don’t want to get eaten, and we like the river, got it,” Kilith said with annoyance. “What we need is a plan. Air supply, for example. Until we shake the bats, we will need a steady source. We could always come up for air on occasion, but I can only hold my breath for a couple minutes. If they come at us when we come up, that will still be pretty miserable.”
“A couple minutes! I’m lucky to go a minute,” Mereámé remarked.
“Wait, bats can swim,” Ruakh said. “Why haven’t they just followed us in here, if they’re so intent on having human for lunch?”
“Maybe these can’t swim,” Gabor said.
Canukke shook his head. “I think something in the water repels them. They seem to avoid it.”
Oloren looked at the water in fright, then relaxed. “It’s just regular river water. Nothing unusual that I can see.”
“That you can see,” Vadik noted.
Enouim cast him a questioning glance, but he shook his head. No invisible evil seemed to be in the tunnel with them now. Then again, Enouim thought, his visual field was constricted by the cloud of bats before the tunnel, so he may have missed something. She shuddered.
“Why can’t we just swim from here out, then, if they hate the water?” Ruakh asked.
“We don’t know for sure they hate the water,” Gabor said, “and even if they do hate it, they might hate us enough to overcome their fears.”
“Or love us enough for snack,” Oloren said.
“But not Gabor. Even the bats don’t need that kind of negativity in their lives,” Baird chirped. Oloren gave him a look. Baird gave her a lighthearted shrug.
“Reeds!” Enouim said.
Canukke frowned at her. “What?”
Kilith followed Enouim’s gaze to the riverbank outside the tunnel, and sure enough, reeds grew further upstream. He grinned. “Reeds are hollow. Nice catch!”
Kilith and Enouim dove beneath the surface, sped to the bank and, while remaining underwater, plucked the longest and sturdiest reeds from the bottom, then returned to pass them out. Enouim awkwardly spun one in her hands, though she didn’t need it. No need to stand out even more than she already did.
They moved out from the tunnel slowly, dipping into the water one by one, and breathing through the reeds to remain underwater and away from the bats. At first Enouim felt rather than saw the bats following them along the river. Their shadows fell like a black cloud hovering above them, unrelenting, thirsty for blood. She dangled her reed behind her and twisted around to look. Hundreds of enormous dark bats flew after then as one seething evil entity.
The company traveled upstream for several minutes in peace before one of the bats swooped down and snatched the reed sticking out of the water from Oloren. After a minute had passed, she had to come up for air, and then several more swept low, careful to avoid the water itself, and made off with the rest of the hollow reeds.
Left with no alternative, the company had to breach the surface, and when they did, the bats flew at their heads with ear-splitting screeches. Oloren plunged her knife into one and thrust it underwater, and four more dove at her for revenge, pulling up at the last moment when she ducked back into the river. Canukke came up next, shielding his face with his arm, dagger in hand, and the others followed his lead.
“We can’t go on like this!” Baird spluttered.
Enouim spun and rose to cover Mereámé as she took a breath. As Enouim shot upward, it was as if the river itself moved her, rather than Enouim propelling herself through the water. She met the surface with great force, covering Mereámé’s emergence and showering the bats with water as she did so. The bats drew back, shrieking their displeasure.
Again she ascended, this time with a rush of water greater than before, and the bats flapped their wings madly. One seemed to have gotten water in its face, and bobbled around in the air as if drunk, then smacked into a tree and dropped to the ground. Still, this couldn’t carry on forever. Enouim drew herself down into the river again, and grasped Mereámé’s arm to pull her along upstream. Pausing, she let go of her friend and saw that, for a moment, the water driving Enouim upstream continued to carry Mereámé along.
Enouim took a moment to play with the water between her hands. It swirled as she bade it, and passing it back and forth between her palms created a small current. She held out her hand and a gush of water, halting at first, fled from her fingertips. When she pulled her fist in toward her chest, the river came to her, washing her hair out in a wave behind her.
Enouim returned to her companions and gestured them to cluster together. “This is going to be a trial run,” she said, “so keep your arms and legs in and take a deep breath. And try not to hit any rocks or anything.”
“What?” Vadik asked.
“What do you think you’re …” but Ruakh never got out the rest of his sentence.
Enouim plunged into the river, down, down to the bottom, breathing in the water around her and gearing up mentally and physically. With a deep inhale to settle herself, she bent her mind on her friends, heads still bobbing at the surface, and then, drawing the river’s currents around her, she flew like an arrow from the string. Enouim shot past them, drawing the water around them to her with all her might, and she was half surprised to glance back and discover that they followed her, carried along by the river like fish in a net.
Canukke looked entirely unsettled, disheveled and cranky; Gabor’s mouth was still gaping open and Enouim grew concerned that he really hadn’t taken that deep breath she’d instructed. Vadik was stunned but practically smiling, and Oloren was positively thrilled by the novelty of the experience. Baird also seemed fascinated, reaching out and pulling his hands back in again, exploring the ride. Enouim would never understand adrenaline junkies. But then, the river was more than adrenaline to her now. It was life.
Ruakh looked surprised but went with it—not that he had a choice—and Kilith was challenging to read as always. Mereámé looked as if she might be seasick. Enouim drew them further upriver, and further, until suddenly she noticed her tagalongs were beginning to grow pale. Startled, she released them, and they careened off into eight different directions.
Enouim’s stomach dropped. She jerked Canukke away from the rocky wall of the river and pushed him toward the surface, grabbing onto Gabor’s leg as she did and redirecting him also. One by one she caught her friends and let them catch their breath, but then they were off again, Enouim pulling them along and stopping to let them breathe in short sprints. She continued for ten minutes before she saw no sign of the bats and was satisfied. She slowed her friends, this time being careful to deposit them more gracefully near the surface.
The bedraggled company looked terrible as they clambered out of the river sputtering and worn. What had begun as a fascinating new means of transportation resulted in hacking, coughing, heaving, and generally feeling as though their insides wanted suddenly to be turned inside-out.
“What in Glintenon’s name was that?” Canukke demanded angrily, still spitting up water.
“Well, the bats aren’t around anymore, are they?” Enouim countered, acknowledging with relief the emptiness of the surrounding trees.
“But … what was it?” Vadik asked, color returning to his face and changing into wonder.
“It just happened.”
“It didn’t ‘just’ anything,” Ruakh said, leaning on his staff as he found the riverbank.
“No indeed.” Canukke eyed her warily.
“Whatever it was, we can be grateful for it,” Baird broke in. “I for one was not too fond of the blood suckers.” Here he took a moment to examine himself, still bleeding up and down his arms. “Say, how could you be so scared of rope swings with that little trick up your sleeve?”
“It’s not a trick, and I didn’t know I had it,” Enouim said. “Anyway, it’s not the same. Water feels … safer.”
“Didn’t feel that safe to me,” Gabor commented, still coughing.
Enouim winced.
“We’re safe now, though, right?” Mereámé asked.
“We’ll certainly follow the river just in case, but yes, I should think so.” Kilith glanced about. “Luckily, this is the direction we were headed. We should still reach Rehim on time—perhaps even ahead of schedule.”
“Well, that’s a mercy!” Oloren piped up. “I’m ready for some dry clothes and traveling by horse again. My feet are dead tired.”
“We should move off the bank a bit, but we’ll rest again soon.” Kilith stretched his legs from where he had seated himself on the bank. “I’m anxious to get the bats behind us, but I feel about drained myself. We’ll rest another few minutes, and then get going.”
Thankfully, no one engaged Enouim for the first couple minutes, though she got many questioning looks which she tried to ignore. Enouim drew her knees into her chest. She had far too many questions of her own to deal with others’ inquiries. What was she supposed to say? Reaching up to the back of her neck, she found that the old scars—or rather, gills—had sealed back up once dry. They were more raised than usual, but closed.
Vadik approached her, more tentatively than was his wont. “Just because you feel alone doesn’t mean you are.”
“I’m not alone,” she mumbled, staring off into the river. It passed by them lazily, its recent excitement already washed away.
“Sure, sure. That’s why you’re sitting over here, by yourself, looking miserable.”
Enouim looked up at him, soothed by his compassion, yet unmoved in her disorganized thoughts. She turned her gaze to the ground and picked at pine needles she found there.
Vadik took a seat beside her.“How are you doing?”
“What do you think?” Enouim shot him a sarcastic glare. In the wake of her shocking discovery, she felt herself growing irritable. She had been fascinated by it in the moment, absorbing the energy of the river, falling in love with the feel of the water. It had been beautiful, lovely, serene … and then it had been twisted around to nearly kill her friends. On top of all of that, she had no idea what had happened to her, and had no answers to give her friends—much less herself.
“Okay, so not great.” He sighed and leaned forward over crossed legs. “What is it about the situation that you’re finding particularly irksome?”
“You aren’t at all concerned by finding out I’m some kind of freak?”
Vadik grinned. “You’re saying you didn’t know you were a freak? We’ve all talked about it for months.”
“I’m being serious.”
“Okay, then so am I. Your weird thing is totally awesome. My weird thing is seeing stuff no one else should believe is there. So what is it about yours that has you so upset?”
“I don’t know.”
“I bet you could guess.”
“No, that’s the part that is frustrating me. I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. I clearly didn’t know how to control what happened, and I nearly dashed everyone to pieces. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Wrong with you?”
Enouim glowered at him. “Yes. Wrong with me. I have a weird, uncouth ability. With water. Of all things! Water, which I was taught to hate. Water, which my father wanted me to avoid, and I didn’t even bathe without a watertight bandage over my neck. Water … with all it’s terrifying mystery. And yet it wasn’t mysterious in the river. It was beautiful. But it betrayed me just the same when I almost killed you all.”
“Why were you told you had to avoid water? That seems awfully suspicious.”
“Well …” Enouim paused. It was such a normal part of her upbringing that she hadn’t spent much time considering how strange it was. “Um. I’m adopted. And nobody knows from where. My father found me on one of his trading trips, traveling. Somewhere out in this direction, actually, though he never told me specifics. And he said that when I was found, I was half drowned in water and that the scars on my neck were given to me by some tentacled sea creature. Or, I guess it could have been freshwater. There isn’t any ocean in this direction, anyway. Water used to sting when it came in contact with the scars, but not the one on my collarbone. Just the ones on my neck.”
“But it doesn’t anymore?”
“No … this time, no sting. And I can breathe underwater with them. Like the sting was more because they need water than because they are averse to it.”
“So all your life, you have avoided water as much as possible. It’s possible you’ve had this ability the whole time and just didn’t know it.”
“Possible,” Enouim agreed thoughtfully. “But why would my father lie?”
Vadik shook his head. “I don’t know. You do still have that one scar though, that is actually a scar. Maybe it was a half-truth.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he keep this from me? No one else …” Enouim trailed off. “Kilith!” she hissed.
“What about him?” Vadik asked, startled by her intensity.
“He knows something. I knew it! He kept checking on me after water, talked to me about my ‘relationship with water’ after the panic episode. And this time … this time, right before we got to the river, he said I was born for this. Born for what? Well, I don’t know, but he definitely knows something. And he knew my father!” Muttering to herself, Enouim abandoned Vadik on the bank and headed for Kilith.
Kilith saw her coming and stood. “All right,” he called to the group, “rest time is over. Time to get a move on.”
He wasn’t getting off that easily. Everyone else stood, and as Kilith struck out first to lead the group, Enouim let him get a few paces ahead of the rest before dashing up to his side.
“You know something. You know something, and you’ve known it a long time, and you kept it from me on purpose.”
Kilith looked down at her. His face was drawn, like a man who had lived a thousand lifetimes. He turned back toward Rehim, but his shoulders were slumped forward and the lines on his face seemed to deepen. He drew in a great, unhurried sigh, and let it out. “Yes.”
Impatient, Enouim waited a full two seconds before demanding, “Well?”
Another sigh. “It was never Rotan’s wish that you discover who you are. He was content that you would find it out for yourself, developing a full identity and personhood outside of your origin. With him.”
Enouim looked up at him eagerly, waiting for more. Kilith glanced down at her and laughed. “You never could stop asking questions,” he said softly.
“But I never knew you before this mission.”
“You did … long ago. I saw you often when you were very young, but I thought you deserved to know where you came from, and Rotan did not. I kept my distance after our final disagreement, but I never stopped watching. He was afraid. You need to know that it came from a place of love. All of it.”
Enouim took a moment to absorb this new information. Still, there was more pressing news she had yet to hear. “Tell me my story.”
32
Kilith took a deep breath. “I told you that I traveled with your father on occasion. Well, that’s true. What I didn’t tell you is that … well, I was the one that found you. I wasn’t on the trip with Rotan, but on another mission at the time. I happened upon Rotan with a group of traders shortly after, and I was able to hand you over to his care.
“I no longer think it was luck that drew us together—first you to me, and then me to Rotan. Rotan and Qadra had not been able to have another child after your older brother Pleko, and Rotan had confided in me their struggle. I knew Rotan to be a good man, intelligent and kind, with a stout heart, and it was with these traits in mind that I, in good conscience, entrusted you to him on that day. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“The first and most important thing you need to know about where you came from is directly related to the scars on your neck that are not scars, and the abilities you were so baffled to have stumbled upon just now in the river. I wasn’t sure whether anything unusual would manifest, and that’s one reason I didn’t say anything until now; another is to preserve the desires of Rotan, a dear friend of mine, who shortly before his passing secured my promise to carry out his wishes regarding you. He didn’t want you to know.
“I don’t know all the ins and outs of your history, but I do know that you are the product of what was considered an undesirable relationship that caused your biological parents to be cast out of their respective societies. Your father was a man, and your mother, one of the Madzi.”
“Madzi!” Enouim exclaimed. “You mean I’m not even fully human?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry … what?”
“The Madzi are not to become romantically engaged with humans, just as the Gudira or Nazir are not to become romantic with humans. Your mother’s love affair with a man brought a lot of heat. From what I gather, your biological father had traveled from the eastern hills and he and his compatriots had a disagreement with the Madzi after building a dam for their own convenience. The Madzi are charged with protecting the rivers, and they became angry. They traveled upstream to punish them, but your father fell in love with your mother and eventually abandoned his own people to run after her. After finding out you were on the way, she panicked and tried to return to her people. She was terrified to lose her place with the Madzi. But it was too late, and while her mother, your grandmother, hid her until you were born, it was too great a secret to keep under wraps forever.
