Seablood

by Cameron Bolling

  A few pieces of metal protruded from the ends—looped, rusted, some broken but a few intact and retaining their strength. She could use them to hitch her body to its weight.

  She fetched her air pocket from where she left it on the other end of the platform. It rolled about in the wind, and she seized it up at once. A great deal of fortune had kept it from rolling right over the edge while she paid no attention. If she lost the thing, she would be stranded on the platform until she inevitably died of dehydration. How ironic for her to meet her end dying of thirst while surrounded by water. Better she keep the air pocket close to avoid such an honorless fate.

  By the stone again, she dropped the things she still carried—her quiver, bag, and bow. From her bag, she took a bit of rope. She tied it around the air pocket, forming a large mesh like a net that held the bubble firm and secure. She wound the other end tight around her waist and over her shoulders like a backpack. Now it couldn’t escape her.

  Next, she removed her tools and several scraps of metal from her bag. Nearby on the platform lay a long, bent strip of metal, and she took that up as well. She hammered away at it, bending it into shape and punching holes to fix other pieces to it. A hinge from her bag found a home on the device, and several springs as well. Finally, she wrapped some spare scraps of burlap around sections of the metal. When she finished, she slipped the contraption into one of the durable loops on the large stone and then moved to test it.

  She lined her foot up with the device and then pushed on a lever. The pieces grated, squealing as metal scraped on metal, but it shifted as designed. Two halves snapped up and into place, one firm strap over the top of her foot and the other pressing hard against her heel and tendon. A bit of a tight fit, but better snug than too loose. It didn’t have to be perfect—it only had to work once.

  She threw the lever back again. The two bars flung outwards in an instant as the springs expanded. Her foot came free with ease.

  Onto the metal platform she dumped the remaining contents of her bag. She took only the jar from the pile, leaving everything else there with her quiver and bow. From her canteen, she took a deep drink of water, which drained the remainder of the container. After a moment of hesitation, she took the canteen under her arm as well.

  Quickly, she made her way back over to the lattice where she had climbed up onto the platform, pulling the air pocket behind her in its harness, though lifting it carefully over the scraps to keep it from getting punctured. At the edge, she descended carefully back to the water level. There, after finding a comfortable and secure way to wedge her body that kept her arms free, she uncapped the jar and filled it with water, then did the same with her canteen. To take them into the depths filled with air would only cause them to leap free of her bag and shoot upwards for the surface before she got the chance to collect the seablood. And that would be a complete disaster.

  She climbed back onto the platform and returned to the stone. Into her bag she placed the jar and canteen, then slung it over her shoulder. She carried only the bag, her knife, and the clothes on her back down into the depths—nothing more. With luck, she would be down there for mere seconds.

  And if she stuck around for much longer, she would be down there forever.

  One glance down at the waves made her head spin, and the swaying forced her to the floor. Everything she needed to enact her plan lay before her—all she had to do was to put it into action. But she wanted nothing less.

  What if she couldn’t even see down there? Or what if something went wrong—any wrench in her plan could be deadly. Even an unanticipated strike to the head that knocked her out cold could spell her end. This plan was mad—completely mad. She’d drown and never resurface. Her friends back in Ahwan would wonder what happened to her, her people would never see her again, Tor would sit for days on the beach, watching the horizon as he waited patiently for her to return, but she never would. She was going to die down there in the depths of the world of water.

  No—no, she had no choice but to live. Whatever obstacles waited for her, she could best them. She had to. Death was not an option.

  For her friends, for her people, for Tor. For Ude and his father, Tor, the old hero whose name fell to disgrace. For Pahlo.

  She had to get the seablood.

  She rolled and wobbled the stone closer to the edge until it sat there right on the lip, covering the arrow that showed her where to go. She placed her foot in the device and shoved the lever into place, locking her to the stone. The air pocket sat just beside her, bound tight to her waist and shoulders. The jar sloshed in her bag.

  Seablood or death. And she refused to die.

  Before she could question herself or once again consider the millions of fears that writhed in her mind, she shoved the stone hard with her foot. It teetered on the edge of the platform for a moment and then fell, yanking her body forward as together they tumbled into the air. Oleja took one last immense gulp of it, bringing that last piece of the sky down with her. She needed its strength now more than ever.

  The stone crashed into the water and then the waves washed over Oleja too. Bubbles streamed by her on all sides, tickling her skin and rushing past her ears with a hundred tiny calls. The rope around her pulled taut. The chill leaked into her skin, and she could almost feel the darkness around her as it dampened the sun’s light behind her eyelids. A feeling like freefall swirled in her gut.

  And then with a thud the stone hit something hard, sending a shockwave up through her body. Very nearly she opened her mouth in surprise, but she kept it clamped shut. Her lungs started to ache. She didn’t have long.

  Hesitantly, she opened her eyes. The currents rushed all around her. The salty water stung her eyes, and she blinked several times as she struggled to grow accustomed to the odd sensation and gritty sting. After a moment, the world came into focus. Dim light filtered down from above, illuminating stone all around her. A few weeds clung to the sides of the pillars, which looked to retain far less quality down at these depths. The base of one large pillar met the stone just in front of her. Around the pillar’s base ran a crack, which stretched all the way in towards what she guessed was the area beneath the center of the platform. The crack could not have been more than an inch thick at any point, but from spots along it, wisps of black liquid floated up, mingling with the water but never mixing. The wisps rose up like fog, dispersing into smaller clouds in the water above.

  If she had to guess, she was prepared to say the dark liquid was the seablood.

  The stone below her sat cocked to the side on the uneven ground, holding her at an uncomfortable angle. Her ankle ached; her lungs ached. The faster she could grab the seablood and get back to the surface, the better.

  She withdrew the jar from her bag and opened it. Leaning out over the crack proved tricky—as she was bound by two forces pulling her in opposite directions—but using the pillar, she managed. Wisp after wisp of the dark fluid entered the jar and pooled there until the whole inside grew murky as if she had captured shadows themselves within. Moving quickly, she capped the jar and placed it back in her bag, then held her canteen over the crack. She couldn’t see how much of the stuff collected inside through the opaque pottery, so she could only guess. Fires burned hotter within her lungs, but dousing them with the water that surrounded her seemed most unwise.

  Her movements in the water felt sluggish, and her muddled mind only worsened the effect. Capping the canteen again felt like it took many minutes, and returning it to her bag took several more. With everything set and packed securely away, she stooped, fighting against the pull of the air pocket above her, and grabbed the lever on her device. She yanked it skyward.

  But it didn’t budge.

  Her fingers slipped from the metal, sliding off without purchase in the cold watery depths. Her heart seized. Her stomach seemed to miss the change in events somehow—it felt as though it shot up towards the surface alone without the rest of her, abandoning her there to meet her death in the darkness of the wo
rld of water.

  Again, she stooped and grabbed at the lever, wrapping it in her fist. She tugged, but still it stuck. Once more she tried, throwing all the force she had into the movement. With a great grinding swosh, the lever sprung up, the springs expanded, and the two bands that held her foot leapt away. With a great jolt, she launched upwards, away from the stone and the seablood crack and the floor of the world of water. She rushed back up towards the sky.

  When her head broke the surface, she gulped air into her lungs. She threw her arms over the pocket of air, holding herself above the surface, sucking in breath after breath.

  Once she had taken several deep breaths, her gasps turned at once to laugher, clear and loud as she bobbed there in the waves. She had done it. She had the seablood. She was alive, and only one trial remained: the final trial, back in Ahwan.

  She kicked through the waves until she arrived back at the lattice of smaller beams; she climbed them quickly. On the platform, she dropped onto the metal floor, cold and damp. Her hair hung as a soaked curtain around her, the braid nearly undone entirely after her fast descent and even faster return to the surface. Streams of water dripped clear and bright from her dark hair.

  Sharp jabs of pain filled her foot. Looking down, she saw a few small cuts crossing the skin, marks left by the metal. She had done her best to make it more forgiving by adding the burlap, which was the best cushioning material she carried with her, but clearly it hadn’t been enough. Blood leaked from the wounds and dripped into the puddle of water that formed beneath her. She could bandage the cuts when she returned to shore, but she shrugged off any concern for the moment; none of the wounds cut deep enough or bled to a degree that caused her any alarm.

  From her bag, she withdrew the jar. The dark liquid and water swirled together in a dance within. She placed it carefully back within her bag and then sat up as a fit of coughs shook her body, bringing pools of lingering salt-tasting water back onto her tongue. She spat them over the platform’s edge.

  When the coughing slowed, she turned her eyes northeast to the shore. One more swim, and then she could be done with the world of water for good.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When she set foot on solid ground again late in the afternoon, she held all three trophies of the core trials in her possession at last—the snow-water from the mountaintop, iron from the desert hills, and now the seablood from the depths of the world of water. All of her excitement was overshadowed immediately after she reached the shore, however, as Tor’s excitement at seeing her welled up far greater than her own ever could.

  She dressed the wounds on her foot and put on her sock and boot again, and donned her cloak as well—a great blessing after emerging from the chill of the waves in clothes soaked through with cold water. After building a roaring fire, she went off to hunt. Her search did not take her far, and she soon returned to the camp with a young deer. She cooked it by the fire and then ate a great meal—more than she could remember having since her time in Ahwan, or perhaps ever. Tor ate a grand helping as well, and together they celebrated the completion of the fourth trial. Only one stood in her path now.

  Even before she finished eating, a sharp headache gripped her skull. Pain began to flare in her joints soon after, mixing with the already-present ache in her muscles from several hours of swimming to and from the platform. Whether from the physical and mental toll of the day or from something else, her eyelids grew heavy and her body seemed drawn by a great weight down towards the sand. She curled up there by the fire under her cloak and blanket as the wind swirled around her. The rhythm of the waves on the sand lulled her to sleep.

  Together, Oleja and Tor set out from the beach the next morning. To Oleja, it felt as if she carried the campfire with her in her joints, and though the pain willed her to sit and rest, she wouldn’t do it. All she had to do now was return to Ahwan, and nothing could delay her. She attributed the pain to some side effect of her swimming and continued on, using her crutches to alleviate some of the strain on her aching limbs. For a day and a half, she wound through the hills north of the shoreline before they released her into a valley. Two more smaller ridges of hills lay in her path, but as she descended the second, a wide valley stretched before her far into the distance. Flat, dry grasslands and sandy, desert-like patches marked her route, broken up only by the occasional remnants of a long-forgotten civilization left over from the Old World.

  Nearly a week it took her to cross the valley until at last the great looming forms of the mountains rose up before her. She approached them with renewed haste despite the still-fading aches in her joints. With each day, the pain lessened more and more, so she was determined to shed no further worry on the matter. As with any deteriorating thing, the pain would soon vanish completely.

  And it did, around the time she reentered the long valley that became the West Run as it neared Ahwan. The sun had just begun to set behind her as she entered the city limits once again. It had been several weeks—the better part of a month—since she left.

  A few whispers followed her and Tor as they passed through the city streets. It looked no different than it had when she left, though somehow it felt smaller. No longer did she walk the streets as some timid outsider struggling to find her place in this new world; she returned now with proof that she had bested four of the five trials laid out in her path, with only one remaining before she could take on her new role as the hero of Ahwan. And the people knew it.

  Through the city she walked, gathering glances with every step. She wound her way up the path to the palace—the same path she had walked so long ago. But this time only triumph waited there at the end. At last her moment had come.

  At the palace doors, the guards seemed to recognize her. They greeted her with rigid nods. Only one—one of the pair at the top of the stairs—spoke.

  “Please leave all of your weapons here at the door,” said the guard, her blonde curls poking out from beneath her helmet, very nearly falling down over her eyes. Oleja hesitated a moment, but then shrugged off her quiver. She handed it, her bow, and her knife over to the guard. The guard took them and placed them in the box along the wall, then motioned to Tor. “No animals are permitted within the palace.”

  Oleja raised an eyebrow. “He accompanied me through every trial of my journey. He stays with me now.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “If the king would like to see me, he will see me alongside my companion.”

  The guard cast a sideways glance at her partner who stood on the other side of the door. The other guard only shrugged. The first turned back to Oleja, a hesitant look on her face.

  “All right,” she said after a moment, and then moved to open the door. Oleja entered the palace hall, Tor at her side.

  Though she knew the interior of the entry hall, that familiarity didn’t diminish the enormity of it, nor the breathtaking details that adorned every surface. Oleja marveled at them as she walked down the center of the long room, headed for the second large door at the opposite end.

  A younger girl stood by the door in a frilled blue dress, papers in hand. Oleja nodded to her and smiled as she approached.

  “Hello, Sabelle.” The girl’s face contorted in confusion for a moment, seemingly surprised to be addressed by name, but then returned the smile.

  “Hello, Oleja Raseari. The king is awaiting your return. He will see you immediately.” Her eyes drifted to where Tor walked, and for a moment a look of concern crossed her face, but then it morphed quickly into a smile. She ran a hand through his fur.

  Oleja followed Sabelle through the door. The king’s chamber lay beyond. King Reungier sat on his chair atop the five steps; Helis stood to the side a few steps lower.

  “Welcome back to Ahwan, Oleja,” said the king, and then after a pause, added, “and pet.” He raised his eyebrows when he looked to Tor but said nothing further on the subject. “How did you fare in the trials of sky, earth, and sea?”

  From her bag, Oleja withdrew the
two jars and wooden box. “Very well—they were easy. All completed without difficulty.”

  Helis raised an eyebrow. The king only nodded. He waved a hand.

  Two others came forth from where they waited by an open door on the side wall. They carried a small table between the two of them, draped in a fine lace tablecloth of blue and bearing the symbol of Ahwan in silver embroidery. They set the table at the foot of the king’s dais and then hurried off back through the door. A moment later they reappeared—one holding a wide stone basin, and the other carrying a tall candle of golden wax. A small orange flame wavered with each step of the attendant.

  The king stood and descended the steps. He stopped before the table and then gestured to Oleja. She stepped forward to stand on the side opposite him.

  The two attendants went to the shorter ends of the table. The one bearing the stone basin set it carefully in the center of the table, and the one with the candle placed it just beside the bowl. Then they hurried off again, back to the doorway where they stood together in silence.

  “Please place the items of your trials on the table,” said the king. Oleja did as he asked, lining up the three on the end of the table.

  The king lifted the box of iron, opened it, looked inside, and then closed it again. He held it out before him. “Iron from the desert hills, to be used in the forging of the spearhead to complete Aukai’s spear, should you free the shaft and shield from the vault in Aukai’s stone.” He returned the box to its place on the table.

  Next, he lifted the jar of snow-water, opened the jar, and smelled it. Then he capped it and held it before him, just the same as he had done with the box of iron. “Water from the snow of our tallest mountain, to be used in tempering the steel as it is forged.”

  With the snow-water back on the table as well, he took up the jar of seablood. The murky liquid swirled around inside. He removed the cap from this jar as well but did not examine the contents nor replace the cover. He held it out in front of him. “Seablood, our city’s sacred element, the material that Aila Aukai brought to this valley during the founding of Ahwan. To be used for starting the fires in which the spearhead will be forged.” When he finished speaking, he dumped the seablood into the basin. The water and black wisps wound together in spirals. Drops splashed out of the basin and dampened the tablecloth around it. A few waves rippled across the surface, and the smell of the world of water hit Oleja again at once. Then, as the water stilled, the king took up the candle in his hand, and after holding it aloft for a moment, he tipped it down towards the basin.