by Arden Ellis
"Wright," she greeted, punctuated by the rasp of stone on steel. "Preston is nearly ready."
Wright nodded. "Kai?"
"In the stern."
"I'll fetch her." Reaching down to pat Silva's shoulder companionably, Wright continued down the length of the ship. She did not hurry her footsteps. Everything happening today would only serve to bring this new life to a close.
Among rows of wooden troughs filled with soil they had ferried bucket by bucket from the mainland, Kai was stooped over her herb garden when Wright made her way to the stern. She wore an undyed tunic with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and the collar hanging open in the heat of the sun. Her hands smoothed the soil over a new seed; she was so intent on her work that she was not aware of Wright's presence. For a while Wright simply watched her work, the gentle care in her hands. It reminded her of a time long ago in another lifetime, when she had watched Kai don her armor in a forest glade, and glimpse depths to the woman that she had never dared imagine.
At last Kai straightened up with a sigh, wiping her hands on her breeches. When she glanced over her shoulder and saw Wright watching her, a smirk broke out over her lips. "You know it's rude to sneak up on people."
"I must be picking up your bad habits."
Wright stepped into Kai's garden, taking care among the troughs. With a firm hand she helped Kai to her feet—a hand which Kai immediately leveraged to pull Wright flush against her. "How dare you imply I am anything but a picture of good behavior."
"A bad picture, perhaps. Something surreal and hideous."
"Everyone's a critic." Kai leaned forward for a kiss, slow and gentle and tasting of the mint leaves she'd been chewing. When she pulled back, the mischief was gone from her eyes. Her fingers drifted over the hard metal of Wright's armor, remembering, relearning. "It's time?"
Wright nodded. Kai's hands tightened on her waist, momentarily; they held tight to each other, foreheads pressed close, holding off the inevitable. Then, Kai let out a breath, and let her go.
"Very well," she said. "I suppose it's time we finished what we started."
Preston was waiting on the deck of the ship with all the bags of his gear when Wright and Kai returned. He looked tired, and yet the smile on his face did not flicker for a moment as Wright greeted him.
Silva had finished sharpening her sword and strapped it to her hip; Preston carried his stave. While Wright helped ensure that everything was packed and ready, Kai disappeared into her bunk before returning clad in her own armor. For a moment Wright could only stare at her. They could have all stepped out of the past, striding across the two years which separated them from the ragged band which set out from Kenilworth Castle to chase little more than a rumor. But this time something was different—Wright saw true hope in all their faces, and felt it warming her own.
They made short work of loading the old dingy they'd salvaged and repaired not long after settling in the ship. Silva took the first turn at rowing; rather than heading straight for shore, they guided the boat along the edge of the coast. Wright watched the graying slabs of sand slide past, the tufts of beach grass running up to the edge of the trees, scanning for enemies and finding none.
"So," Kai said over the slap of the oars. "Let's see it, alchemist. You've had it squirreled away in the lab for all these long months, and I'm just about dead from curiosity."
Preston grinned. "You've waited this long—too impatient for another hour?"
"Just want to be sure that this isn't one of your elaborate pranks."
"Still smarting over that trick with the seaweed?"
"That wasn't a trick, it was a nefarious scheme. I happen to know that you're full of them."
"I won't deny it."
It was not so long before Silva turned the boat back to the shore, her keen eyes picking out the marker they had left in the branches of a tree when the scouted out this location weeks earlier. The red scarf Kai had tied there fluttered in the wind as they pulled the boat onto shore. Waves broke and sighed like the constant push and pull of measured breaths, the preparation for a great leap.
The godsruin was a short walk from the beach. Its clay shingled roof drooped low with age; the windows and doors had fallen in, gaping mouths filled with the deeper darkness inside. It was not to this that Preston led them, but down the stone-laid path which meandered from its door, choked with weeds. The strap of Preston's bag pressed Wright's shoulder, a reminder of an old injury. She hardly felt it. Her eyes were fixed on the path ahead.
They reached it at last, the little figures sunken in a pit of dirty sand. Narrow metal rails sprouted from the ground, peeling brightly colored paint. Their original shapes were lost to time and the ravages of the curse; they hunched over like strange bald creatures that had fallen asleep, veins of iridescent color spreading over their surfaces. Metal poles stood listing to the side, the chains dangling between reminiscent of a device from some elaborate torture chamber.
There was a faint haze in the air above them, like a mirage without heat. Even standing a safe distance away, Wright's instincts prickled, urged her further back. The chains stirred in a gentle breeze, the air rippling around them as they moved.
"Children played here, once," Preston said. He stared at the ruin as if lost in thought, but his hand on the strap of his bag was white-knuckled.
Silva snorted. "No child of mine would play in such a grim place."
Blinking, Preston seemed to pull himself out of his reverie. "Do not be so quick to say so," he said with a smile. "Perhaps one day you will bring them here and tell them of how this was the place where the curse began to die."
Silva settled a firm hand on Preston's shoulder—under it, he relaxed. "Shall we find out?" she said quietly, and he nodded.
With practiced motions they all unpacked the gear, Preston's careful lectures and drills on its proper care and handling finally seeing use. Wright unpacked bundles of metal wire as Kai worked to straightening them; Preston and Silva bent over one of his stranger pieces of equipment, a metal rotating handle which seemed to turn nothing at all. At last, when all else was ready, Preston went to the box.
There were no jewels set in its wooden surface, no leather accents, no velvet lining. It was simply a wooden box, special only in that Preston had crafted it himself. Inside lay the burden of all their hopes: the harness, tank, and nozzle which contained Preston's formula. He slung the tank over his back, took up the distributing rod. He looked so strange that Wright almost laughed, but the sound died silently in her throat.
For a moment Preston was still. Wright had come to learn that Preston was not a religious man, but as she watched he bowed his head and closed his eyes. Praying not to the gods whose mistakes he sought to set right, but perhaps to some higher, better thing—something which would not make such mistakes in the first place. Wright turned only to Kai. Their hands laced together. It was the only prayer Wright needed.
After a moment, Preston opened his eyes. Silva's hand lingered on his shoulder; he looked from her to Kai to Wright. "Thank you for being here," he said softly. "All of you. If this doesn't work—"
"None of that now," Wright said softly.
Preston's mouth twisted wryly, but he shook his head. "If this doesn't work," he continued nonetheless, "there is a box in my chambers beneath the foot of my bed. It contains all my research notes, written as clearly as I could manage. You must find a way of continuing this, if I cannot."
"Enough deathbed talk," Kai said, slapping Preston on the back. "You and your device will do just fine." And yet Kai's hand lingered at Preston's back, as if she were willing whatever safety was left in the world to pass through her, into him.
With a final nod, Preston twisted the release valve on the side of the nozzle. A slow hiss came from the tank. Preston nodded, seemingly to himself, and then took the first step forward.
His boots sank into the sand as he made his way across the rotting wood which had once kept the sand contained. He held the distributor low to the
ground, moving it with slow sweeping motions. A clear liquid spluttered from the nozzle, sinking into the sand almost instantly. He walked as if on a sheet of thin ice over a river. Wright could almost feel the crack and shift of some terrible icy darkness beneath his feet, had to bite back the cry to call him back.
Another step. Another. Wright had seen how quickly the curse could come barreling up from the ground, like a viper lunging from its den. There would be nothing she or any of them could do but watch.
Yet another step. The first of the cursed shapes loomed before him, a twisted beam of metal fallen on the ground, half-reared. At last Preston came to a stop. His feet were one step away from the edge of the tainted sand. He raised the distributor and waited.
Wright held her breath. Even the wind had died out, steeping the strange shapes in a preternatural stillness. She could see the curse radiating into the air, blurring Preston's outline as if he stood before a bonfire. The minutes dragged on. Tension gathered in the set of Preston's shoulders; as the curse smoldered before him like a fire without heat, he leaned into it.
"Preston—" Wright started to step forward until Kai's hand seized her arm to hold her back. Kai's jaw was clenched, her eyes riveted on Preston's back. "Wait," she said, the word itself like a prayer.
For a moment longer, Preston hung suspended against the frenzied movement of the curse. It rose higher around him, like a great wave of churning currents, about to break, about to consume him. Wright started to shake Kai off, to step forward—and then, the shimmer in the air began to sink back into itself, curling and crumbling away like a slip of paper taking a flame.
"My gods," Silva whispered.
Preston turned back to them, a quiet smile on his face. The air around him was changing, deflating; before long there was no distortion at all. The three warriors watched as Preston stepped forward, stooped down, and plucked something out of the cursed ground. He walked back to them slowly, the device held loosely in one hand. He stopped before Wright and dropped something in front of her hand—a rusted metal figure, a man with a helmet and a gun. A children's toy. Nothing godly about it.
Silva laughed, the sound fraught with relief, and stepped forward at last to touch his arm and confirm he was whole. Preston held up the device with a grin. "Didn't I tell you I had my own ways of fighting, Ser Kai?"
"And I will never doubt you again," Kai said. "You'll show me how this works?"
"Oh, it's quite simple," Preston said. "Even you should be able to muddle through it."
Kai elbowed him in the side with a snort. They all stared at the strange twisted shape, bleached and motionless. As they watched, it began to shrink. Cracks moved over its surface. Before long It would dissolve into nothing but dust.
"We've changed the world today," Silva said quietly.
"Not yet." Preston turned to stare over the sloping curves of the dunes, towards the ruined house with the curse lurking within, the long and empty road that stretched away from it into nothing. "The world is still out there, waiting for what we've done." His eyes turned back to them, meeting each of their gazes in turn. He looked exhausted. Exuberant. A different man, and a better one. "This is only the beginning."
*~*~*
They camped on the beach that night, sheltered from prying eyes on the mainland from the rocky bluff at their backs. For hours they sat and celebrated, Silva whipping out her deadly accurate impressions of various lords and knights they knew, Kai competing to match Preston's surprisingly thorough repertoire of bawdy jokes. It was a while before Kai excused herself with a laugh and a well-crafted excuse; Wright knew her well enough now to see straight through it. Not long after, she rose to follow.
She followed the tracks of Kai's bare feet in the sand to a little cove out of sight from the main fire. Out here, there was nothing but the moonlight glinting on the waves, their troughs dark as ink where they lapped at the beach. Kai did not look up as Wright settled beside her. For a while, they sat in silence.
"You know what this means." The surf rose and fell behind Kai's words like slow, even breaths. Her tone was quiet; Wright could not place the emotion in it. She could guess, though, at Kai's thoughts.
"We have the cure, but our true task is yet ahead of us," Wright said at last. "It will be up to us to make sure it gets to the people who need it."
Kai's lips quirked. "People like the lords?"
"No." Wright shook her head, her fingers burrowing into the sand. "They would have no reason not to horde it, or sell it, or use it for their own selfish needs. We cannot let that happen."
"Preston says that before long he'll be able to produce enough of it to start distributing them directly to the people." Kai's eyes settled on her in the semi-darkness. "But of course, you don't want to wait that long."
Wright watched the waves creep over the sand and dissolve. Perhaps one day they would be able to dive into that water for pleasure alone, without fear of the death it might carry. Slowly, she shook her head. "How can we sit idle and wait, when we already possess the key to changing everything?"
Kai turned away, laughing softly under her breath. "Ah, Ser Wright. Always intent on saving the world alone."
Wright's hand found Kai's fingers beside her. They were warm, and gritty with sand; Wright's curled around them as gently as she might have cupped a bird with a broken wing. "I wouldn't be alone."
Kai's gaze wandered from Wright's face to their entwined fingers. In the dark, it was difficult to read her expression. Wright could only see that she smiled. "Why, ser," she said wryly. "It almost sounds as if you are proposing a quest."
"A precious artifact, a perilous journey, a duty to protect those without the means to protect themselves…" Wright shrugged. "I suppose it does sound that way."
"Will it be dangerous?"
"Oh, without a doubt."
"Grueling?"
"Absolutely harrowing."
"And the rewards?"
Slowly, Wright leaned in. Her lips were close enough that they brushed Kai's as she spoke, tasting of sea salt and skin. "Considerable."
Kai grinned and leaned forward, shifting to prop an arm on the other side of Wright's hip as she drew back, teasing. "If we are to eliminate the curse from every road and godsruin in the land, we'll certainly have our work cut out for us."
Wright leaned back on the sand, reaching up to run her hands through the soft darkness of Kai's hair. "I imagine it will be nigh impossible. The work of a lifetime, no doubt."
"Hmm." Kai shifted over her, the moonlight catching her outline and gilding her in silver. Wright could just make out the glint of her eyes, shining. "An entire lifetime spent with you?" She shook her head ruefully. "How are we to survive each other?"
At that, Wright could stand it no longer. She reached up to yank Kai flush against her, feeling her weight and smelling her smell, the knowledge that Kai was hers and would be until death caught them both. For the first time in her life, Wright understood true devotion. "I'm sure we'll manage somehow." She leaned up to press a slow kiss to Kai's mouth, and when she pulled back she knew that Kai would follow.
FIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arden Ellis is a writer and a nomad. Originally from Virginia, now she writes her way back and forth across North America from the back of her beat-up minivan. Find tales of her exploits on twitter: @leemfish.
