What?
What do you offer that we may savor forever?
“A story.”
The humming convulsed around a sound that might have been laughter. Undeterred, Iliff pressed on.
“Yes, the story of how the three of us came to be here. The three of us on the barge above. The story of what we seek. Once you consume me, I will be gone and that will be that. But with a story… Well, you will be able to enjoy that for as long as you wish. And I promise you that it is a worthwhile story.”
Tell us the story.
Tell us so that we may judge its worth.
Iliff heard a trace of what he hoped was interest. Either that or impatience.
“No,” said Iliff. “If I tell you, then you will have the story and yet still have us in your grasp. That will not do. No, before I utter a single word, you must promise first to release us.”
The lights beyond his closed eyes dimmed. The humming fell so low that Iliff imagined he could hear the seaweed contemplating his offer. All the while, the tendrils not binding him flowed round his head.
At length, the seaweed spoke its decision.
Chapter 19
Above the heaviness in his chest, Iliff’s throat convulsed, grabbing for air that was not there. It was a dreadful feeling, made worse by the whine at the back of his throat that climbed with each spasm. Now darkness blotted out the green lights in his periphery, and Iliff felt as though he were inside the gullet of something tubular and monstrous. For while he pulled at the water, while he tried to beat his way upward, his constricting vision made it seem that he was sliding downward, ever downward. That he was being swallowed.
The second Iliff broke the surface, a thick arm reached beneath his torso and lifted him onto the deck.
“Iliff!”
Iliff flopped onto his back and gasped in fresh air. His vision swam for a moment, then steadied and began to open out again. Tradd’s face loomed over him. Iliff reached up and patted his cheek.
He had been submerged deeper than he thought. Far deeper.
Tradd’s words jumbled together. “I jumped in after you, but the seaweed started wrapping around me. It tried to pull me under, and it almost did, but I ripped it away and beat my way back up.”
Iliff nodded, too breathless to speak. At last he climbed to his feet. Still holding to Tradd’s arm, he hobbled toward the front of the barge, bits of seaweed dropping from him. It felt strange to be in control of his limbs again, of his weight. He spit as he went, trying to rid his mouth of the awful taste of the tendrils. In the open air, his skin felt raw and exposed.
“You were down there for so long,” Tradd was saying. “I thought we’d lost you.”
“No, no, I’m all right,” Iliff spoke in huffs. He rubbed Tradd’s back. “I’m all right.”
The air stood quiet. No wind stirred. He looked from Tradd to the sea, where the phosphorescence continued to rise around them.
“What happened?” Tradd asked.
“I went down to speak to it, to ask it to release us.”
“You spoke to the lights?” Tradd stared straight into their glow.
Iliff nodded. He understood now that although Tradd could see the lights, he was not influenced by their sound. The low, humming tones must have been beyond his perception.
“Did it work?” Tradd asked.
Iliff looked back over the water. “We made an agreement,” he said. “Now it is a question of whether it will honor its end.”
For his part, Iliff had retold the story as vividly as he could, from his earliest memories of the prison, to his escape, to encountering Troll in the mines and their venturing out into the world together. He told it of the forest fire and of fleeing into the swamp. How Skye had awakened him in the clearing, and how, in later years, they had loved and married.
The whole time, the seaweed did not speak.
Iliff described their battle with the Garott and their eventual reconciliation, despite his stone walls, which had fallen to ruin in the end. He described Troll’s return, Troll’s giving Tradd over to them, and Troll’s great sacrifice in the forest. At last, he told it how he, Skye, and Tradd had set out on their journey in hopes of crossing the Great Sea and reaching the Far Place. All so that they might find the eternal Sun. That they might find it and look upon it at last.
The seaweed stirred around him.
What is the Sun?
“It is where I am from,” he said. “Where we are all from.”
What does it look like?
“That’s just it. I won’t know until I am able to see it.”
You take a great risk.
A great risk seeking something you’ve never seen.
“I don’t know,” Iliff said. “I feel the greater risk is in not seeking at all. In giving up.”
The tendrils around him fluttered in question.
“I have told you of my wife, of Skye. She sleeps so much these days. In fact, she sleeps now. If we do not cross the Far Place, if we do not reach the Sun, she will sleep for all time. It is for her we journey.”
You would sacrifice yourself for another?
“It is no sacrifice,” Iliff said. “Skye is a part of me now. As is Tradd.”
As he spoke, Iliff felt Tradd above, his hands on his knees, peering past the water into the luminous tangle that held him. He felt Skye in the cabin, her sleeping breaths like intimate whispers inside his own chest. And with these, he felt the profound truth of what he had just spoken.
“Where one goes, we all go,” he finished.
Iliff waited for the seaweed’s response. All the time he had been speaking, it suspended its efforts to digest him. But still it held him fast.
“I have told you my story,” Iliff said, becoming fearful. “I have kept my end of the promise.”
The seaweed said nothing.
“And we must leave now if we are to have any hope of getting there.”
The humming of the seaweed rose and fell, and Iliff could feel its dilemma. The seaweed was not accustomed to releasing its prey. In fact, it could not recall ever having done so. For an instant, Iliff became aware of a distant part of the deadly bloom where a whale-like creature succumbed to the tendrils. He felt it being pulled down, deeper and deeper. He felt its fatty flesh burning away.
Go.
The tendrils slipped from Iliff’s mouth and unbound his torso and limbs. The sea opened above him.
Go now.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Iliff made for the surface.
Safe on the barge now, his eyes surveyed the waters. He was free, yes, but unless the seaweed released them, the great risk he had taken was for nothing. They would only remain mired.
“Look!” Tradd cried.
Iliff followed Tradd’s finger to where, far ahead, a tiny seam appeared in the phosphorescence. It moved toward them, growing longer, wider, as the pale lights submerged into dimness. Iliff clasped Tradd’s shoulder. At last the sea darkened around them. The barge began to rise. Between the boards of the deck, Iliff spied the final glowing tendrils unraveling from the timbers. Shortly the barge was rocking on the sea again.
Before Iliff could say anything, Tradd was climbing into the small boat and driving it out into the channel before them, the tether to the barge drawing taut.
Near morning, Iliff unfurled the sail and tied it open, then gave a cheerful shout as it puffed toward where Tradd continued to row. Soon the climbing wind was strong enough to fill the sail and propel the barge. Iliff helped Tradd aboard, and together they pulled the small boat onto the rear deck. Iliff took the steering oar, not caring that he had not slept in nearly two days. Around them the lights of the seaweed paled and then diminished to nothing.
They were through, Iliff saw. The sea stood open before them. They had one day now, this final day, to catch Depar’s skiff.
* * *
All morning Iliff listened to the sail vibrate and the sea break around them. The barge rose and fell, just as it had during their first day
s out. And though the barge was in poorer shape, it continued to hold together and carry them. Around midday, the mist deepened, blowing in white and thick until Iliff could hardly make out the mast, much less the sea before them.
“Our course remains true.”
He had not seen Skye emerge from the cabin. Her declining state had depleted her color, and in the mist she appeared even less substantial. He scooted over and helped her to sit beside him before staring ahead once more. Depar’s words from his dream had become unremitting:
Remain close. We will have only a moment to pass.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I sleep more, I know. But it is only because we are near the Far Place.” Though she raised her eyes to his, her voice barely penetrated the wind. “Please see this as a good sign.”
Mist streamed between their faces.
In the mid-afternoon, Iliff instructed Tradd to jettison whatever was not essential. Tradd began with the small boat, untying it and rolling it overboard. The boat bobbed, then slipped from sight. With a loud crack, he yanked up the shelter over their supplies. He tottered with it to the edge of the deck and dropped it into the water, where it broke apart. Next went empty boxes and spare ropes. In Iliff and Skye’s cabin, Tradd unbolted the iron stove from the floorboards and dragged it out and cast it off.
Every time something else splashed into the water, the barge leapt up and seemed to gain a little more speed. But would it be enough? Iliff wondered.
When the mist began to dim, Iliff knew the final hours were upon them. He looked at Skye, who had fallen asleep, her fair wisps of hair brushing his cheek as though to soothe him. Holding fast to the steering oar, he called to Tradd once more.
“Everything,” he said, gesturing with his free hand. “The food, the barrels of water, the beds.”
“Everything?”
Iliff nodded.
Tradd stood there a moment, then unlashed the food crates and scooted them to the verge of the deck. It was with little cheer, Iliff saw, that he proceeded to shove them into the water, one by one.
When the deck was stripped of all but the sleeping cabin and mast, Tradd raised his head.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
Though Iliff did not possess Tradd’s acute senses, he did hear something. A roar ahead of them, constant and distant. And then his heart truly sank, for if this were something else coming to challenge them, it was over. They would never catch Depar’s skiff, never make it to the Far Place. He calmed himself before reaching forward with his awareness. He felt the sea, felt the crawling strands of mist. And something else. Something he could not feel beyond.
His eyes shot open.
“Tradd!” he called. “Get to the front of the barge. Tell me the instant you see anything.”
Tradd wheeled and disappeared, the mist swirling around him. For the next hour, the roaring grew louder and nearer. So near that the barge began to rattle. Iliff half stood from his seat, but he could not see anything through the mist. He could only feel the wall Adramina had told him of. The wall that separated the living from the fallen.
Remain close.
His eyes searched around them as the barge charged forward. The sail stood full, the deck bare. What else could they do? His eyes fixed on the cabin. Yes, the cabin. They would have to dismantle—
“I see it!” cried Tradd. “I see it!”
“What? What is it?”
“Depar’s boat!”
Iliff’s heart sprang to new life. He wanted to stand and run to the front of the barge, to see for himself, but he needed to steer the barge straight. They could ill afford to lose their course now.
“How close?” he called.
“Not too…”
But Tradd’s voice became lost beneath the roaring. Neither could Iliff see Tradd’s bulk any longer, not even in snatches. His sight ended at the gangway where mist collapsed inward from both sides.
And then Iliff recognized the sound, and he felt the blood drain from his face.
He pictured the water, the entire sea, disappearing into a great chasm, for the roar was the sound of water falling. The sound of doom. The winds pounded down and the barge shook. Beyond the mist, Iliff heard the sail tear and flap away. At almost the same instant, the blade broke from the oar. Iliff dropped the handle and lifted Skye into his arms. He made his way toward the front of the barge.
“Tradd!”
The mast crashed before them, toppling into the sea.
With Skye tucked beneath him, Iliff crouched into a crawl. The winds blasted him from all sides. He cradled Skye with one arm, and with the other, felt along the deck, his fingers grasping at spaces between the planks, his knees driving the two of them forward.
“Tradd!” he cried again.
A voice emerged. “…there! It’s there!”
As though by magic, the barge settled suddenly and the mist thinned. Just ahead, Iliff found Tradd pointing before the barge, pointing to where Depar’s skiff drifted between two curtains of roaring water. Iliff peered around them and then grabbed Tradd and laughed, for the sea was not falling away, but rather falling from above. Falling in a great, crashing wall, save where Depar’s skiff glided through. And the barge was following in the skiff’s wake, its own momentum driving it forward.
They stood and watched Depar’s skiff ease into the still water beyond. And now they, too, were inside the wall. Water thundered down to either side. Iliff squinted through the spray of mist. Was that the Far Place? He looked from the distant rise of land to Skye, who still slept. Now they had only to pass through that land, he thought, and she would be restored. She would be well. He smiled and shook Tradd’s arm. But when he glanced backward, his blood turned to ice.
The breach in the wall was narrowing. Falling in on itself. Closing too fast.
We will have only a moment to pass.
Far too fast.
The front of the barge was just edging into the calm when the water crashed down. The barge reared, then snapped in half. Iliff found himself somersaulting, the sea rushing toward him in violent flashes. And then he was being driven into the churning water, aware only that he had lost his hold of both Tradd and Skye.
Chapter 20
The wind’s sound soothed. It whispered through the tall grass and gathered in the air overhead. A light, clean-smelling air, whose movement did not disturb Iliff. Like someone just awakening from a deep slumber, his body felt thick and warm. Reclined on his back, he was loath to open his eyes, loath to stir. He wanted only to savor this state.
Iliff listened to the wind shift. First one way, then the other, as though holding a quiet conversation with itself—one taking place right above him.
Reluctantly, Iliff cracked his eyelids. The glare of mist made him shut them again. He was tempted to keep them closed, to burrow back beneath sleep’s warm blanket, but he had seen something. He lifted the edge of his hand to his hairline and squinted out once more. Immediately the whispering stopped, and from the mist appeared two faces. One was a young man, the other a young woman. Iliff saw by their smooth features and fair hair, by their dress, that they were Fythe.
He fought to think, but everything felt foggy. Had he overslept? Had these two come to summon him to an Assembly meeting? He stayed peering up at them. Though the man and woman hovered over him, they remained pale and quiet, never quite seeming to emerge from the mist.
“Morning…,” Iliff managed.
The Fythe looked at one another, then stood and walked away. The mist trailed out behind them, as though it were a part of their dress. Their departure pulled the fog of sleep from Iliff as well. He could now see that he lay on a slope. Cool grass climbed into a forest above him, where white trunks rose into delicate showers of green and golden leaves.
“Wait!” he called as they entered the trees.
He rose to his knees and looked all around. He was on a shore, but it did not look to be the shore of their lake, for it was clean, without stones. The bluff was nowh
ere to be seen. Below him and down an expansive white beach sat lines and lines of small boats. Their arrangement was neat, the water that slid up to them clear and calm. As he stood, the final vestiges of fog slipped from his mind.
And now Iliff saw the debris scattered along the shoreline.
He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He sprinted down to the water’s edge, passing tangled ropes and boards and now a long length of fractured timber. Each artifact further concretized the memory of those final, horrific moments on the barge. His eyes scanned the sea, where nothing stirred or made a sound. He could see water crashing down in the far distance, casting up great plumes along the horizon, but he could not hear it. It was as though the sound were being cast outward.
Iliff cupped his hands to the sides of his mouth.
“Skye!” he called. “Tradd!”
No response.
He shouted their names again before running to where the small boats lined the beach. He needed to get out there, needed to search the waters.
There were so many of the boats along the shore, perhaps thousands. The lines of them followed the shore’s curve, finally disappearing where the beach seemed to become mist, far away. When Iliff came close to the boats, he slowed, for he recognized them. The flat-hulled vessels were Fythe funeral skiffs. He rose onto the toes of his boots, wary of what he might see inside. But the boats were empty. He was preparing to grab the nearest one and launch it when he noticed the familiar lantern. It hung brown and dim now. Iliff looked into the skiff’s barren hull, the pale boards appearing as pristine as when they had been laid weeks before. It seemed impossible to Iliff that this skiff, Depar’s skiff, had made the same journey as they had.
Near his feet, a set of depressions marred the sweeping sands. They began at the skiff’s side, as though someone had climbed out and stood for a moment before walking inland. Iliff left the boat and followed them toward the tall grass, soon noticing a smaller set of footprints joining them. These new prints arrived from the water. Drawing hope from their small size and soft cadence, Iliff sped his pace.
But he had only pursued the prints a short distance when he stopped and turned his eyes back to the skiff. His hope stumbled. If the first set belonged to Depar, as he suspected, then Skye’s prints alongside them was little comfort. Depar was fallen, after all. Did that mean…?
Final Passage (The Prisoner and the Sun #3) Page 12
