"Go. Rest. I promise the morning will be better. We'll be at Wrepta soon enough."
The last thing she saw before he shut the door was the Crystal Spire standing sentinel in the moonlight and a flash of what might have been a beacon at its height. Jalcina shook out her hair in the dark as she laid back down.
Morning came and brought with it renewed heat. Jalcina, still awake, stared at the close ceiling and waited. Mekan would come. He could not have missed her appearance the night before. Over and over again, she sorted through what she saw, which seemed more and more like a dream brought on by a fevered imagination.
When Mekan opened the door, she turned her head to him but did not rise. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
"Leaf says you were within the ship last night."
"He tells the truth."
"I asked you not to." Though his face did not change, she saw the downward shift in his shoulders. "I just wanted to protect you."
Jalcina slid her tongue between her teeth. His protection meant nothing.
"Wrepta awaits us."
He moved back out onto the deck and left the door open for her to follow. Jalcina took her time rising from the floor, dread in every motion. The ship wasn't anchored, but so near to Wrepta perhaps it didn't need to be. The Spire sat beside the ship, a gleaming perfection striving toward the sky. For the first time, Jalcina sensed a presence.
It pressed against her like the awareness of someone sleeping nearby. Not quite empty, but without direction.
"She sleeps," Mekan observed as they stood on the deck. The crew stared up at the edifice as if seeing it for the first time. "It is time you met her."
Jalcina let her misgivings show as Mekan strode to the railing and held out a hand for her. The rope would put them down in the water below, shallows around the spire like moving frost. For all the heat of the southern waters, Wrepta projected an almost unimaginable chill.
"I refuse."
Mekan turned with a frown clouding his face.
"You must."
"No." Jalcina fixed him with a stare. Leaf stepped forward from the crew and put his hand on Jalcina's shoulder.
"You've come this far," he said. "What's a little farther?" His question offered her little recourse. They were in foreign waters three days from anywhere. If she didn't go with him, what would she do? He did not have to take her back to civilization. Mekan could choose to throw her overboard and she could not expect any of the crew to help.
With hesitation, Jalcina stepped forward and moved down the rope to the water. Her toes curled in the cold as it flooded around her ankles and wet her skirt to cling to her legs.
"Why is it cold?"
"Wrepta has long been this way," Mekan said as he slipped into the water beside her. "Perhaps her demeanor will change now that you are here." A smile lit his face as he led the way across the shallows to what might be called a beach if it didn't turn into a wall soaring upward. Jalcina leaned back and tried to take it in, but lost her way to the top. Bringing her eyes back to Mekan, she felt her chest hitch in fear.
Mekan wore the face of a Lascha, round eyes like marbles turning in his skull.
It had been enough to see the night before in the half-dark of the ship, but in the full light of day, the sight threatened her peace. His jaw hinged like a doll and she saw from the parting of his lips the suggestion of flattened teeth.
If he was one of the lost, one of the lonely taken by the sea, what did he have in store for her?
Though there was no door before them, he led the way to the crystalline perfection before them. Jalcina saw her face and his reflected back and realized the face she saw in the wall was not what she saw when she looked at him. He looked just as he always had when she stared at his reflection.
"Mekan—"
He stopped short at his name.
"I—"
Behind them, something splashed in the shallows. Jalcina turned expecting one of the crew.
The creature behind her was not what she expected.
It was not a Lascha, which looked like dolls, but a person who wasn't a fish.
A long time before, Jalcina remembered one of her tutors telling her of the fish people who lived below the waves of some far off country she knew she would never see. How they could come on land, but only for a time and at great cost. How they bore the colors and shapes of flowers captured beneath the waves and nothing was more beautiful or terrible than them. Not even dragons.
Jalcina had dreamed of them then, wishing she could see something so fantastical as a man who would be a fish.
Then she had been a child.
Now, she faced just such a man and he bore a spear that he stabbed into the air with defiance.
"Leave here!"
The command did not frighten her, but the brandished spear gave her pause.
Mekan stepped to the side and addressed their attacker.
"I have business with Wrepta."
"Leave here," the guardian commanded. "You bring destruction with you."
The two squared off, but didn't attack. Jalcina shook her head and put herself between them.
"Stop it."
The two glared at each other across her and Jalcina didn't try to keep them both in sight. Instead, she yelled for the crew.
"Help us!"
Nothing, as if no one could hear.
The guardian advanced without warning. Jalcina spun out of the way of his spear lunge and knocked the weapon away.
"Get back." Mekan tried to grab the spear after she slapped it off course but the attacker snatched it back. As she moved, Jalcina saw others coming from the waves. They gathered around her with cries like frantic birds, strident without words. The noise bored into her brain and she tried to shake it away.
"STOP!"
Mekan did what he could to protect her, but they were being overrun and thrust back against the high wall of Wrepta. The Crystal Spire did not open to admit them and the ring of weapons and mer-men came closer. Fear tried to choke off her breath as Mekan stood between her and their opponents.
He tried to protect her, but there was little he could do.
The peal of a bell rang out over them all and the world froze. Their attackers stopped statue still and only the water that lapped at their legs moved. Jalcina stared in disbelief and pressed her hands against Mekan who also stood unmoving, his hands poised to snatch away a spear threatening his side. Everything around them had gone burning cold.
Wrepta's spire shimmered with low light and Jalcina turned to look at herself in the mirror of its surface. Then she was below it, leaving them all behind.
Dreaming of the End
Around her, a world grew indistinct and unfocused. Her eyes sought forms that were not and she knew the truth: she dreamed. Only they were not her dreams, these were Wrepta's dreams, held together by time for what purpose she didn't know. They passed before her mind like a veil and drifted with the ease of snowflakes over a meadow.
Jalcina placed her hands before her eyes and forced herself to focus there.
In this world, she felt as if she didn't even truly see herself and in losing that, she lost everything.
Mekan grew in her memory, his face surrounded by the streaked hair of his people, but not as he had been in Wrepta's reflection. It was him as a Lascha, one of the lost, the bright black eyes turning back and forth with the avidity of a predator. He would murder her.
It hurt to be so certain.
He would paint with her blood if given the chance.
All in hopes of bringing back Wrepta, the protector, the one who had gone to sleep and would never wake again.
In those moments, Jalcina knew that was true. Anything left behind by the magic was only a vestige, a memory, a ghost. It could not be brought back to life as it had not truly died, but what sustained it would never resurrect it. Mekan would not accept that.
Once maybe, a long time ago, Wrepta might have been something else. Might have been strong enough. Now,
she hardly existed.
Pity welled up inside her, but not enough to keep her from wondering how she would use this to her advantage. Mekan wanted to bring Wrepta back to life and would sacrifice everything for it. Could she use that?
"Who were you?" Jalcina asked the emptiness around her. No answer came.
Leaf spoke of Wrepta as one who walked. Once, she had been the protector. The Kemalan said that Jalcina and Wrepta together were hope. Had she been wrong?
Power could not be created nor destroyed, only changed.
Jalcina let that wash over her. Wrepta still had some power, a shadow of itself but present. It emanated from the remains like heat from a corpse. If she could harness it. The gossamer world around her took on a finer touch, nothing short of the drape of silk over her limbs. Curling it around her, Jalcina drew it in and something answered.
The presence of the former creature did not shriek at her touch, but whimpered in remembered fear.
Death whispered to Wrepta with Jalcina's touch and the once great and powerful being did not shrink away. She did not run toward her end, but she did not shy from it either.
In those moments, Jalcina did finally see a face, one she did not recognize but knew just the same.
Wrepta had once been a beautiful woman, not by arrangement of her features but by the strength of her character. She possessed the warmth of brown skin with strong intelligent eyes full of discernment. Around her face, long braids of dark hair full of the streaks of the Xernian folks.
"You were once and will never be again," Jalcina said to the apparition.
"I was once and never wish to be again," Wrepta replied. What fear there had been in her was no longer. Wrepta embraced Death as it reached for her with chill fingers. "My time has come. Yours will come."
The pronouncement might have once filled Jalcina with fear, but as she wore the strength Wrepta released, she knew it no longer mattered. She was no longer the same person. Jalcina was not Leviana. She was not Wrepta. However, she was also not Jalcina. The girl born of Sartol who lived in the prior years had not been destroyed, but replaced. Her name forgotten only to be resurrected was no longer her own.
The sudden rush of the water surrounding her woke her. Waves, gentle and soft, broke around her body as she lay in the shallows near the Spire now gone the dull color of rust even in the fullness of the light. Her eyes burned as she stared upward before covering them.
For heartbeats she lay there, the waves lapping and seeming to laugh against her as a smell strengthened. Jalcina wanted to ignore it. It persisted. She sat up slow, hair dragging against her back in a long wet banner.
Bodies lay in the water.
Fingertips away, Mekan stared up into the sunshine, his face slack and empty. Jalcina drew in a breath to scream. Around her the water was no longer clear but bloody, the formerly white froth pink and stained. The guardian lay facedown, his fins stirring lazily in the breeze. Their other attackers, their bodies remaining in the protective ring, lay still. The ship groaned and Jalcina stumbled to her feet, wiping the sea from her face as she did. Above her, the Spire cracked with a massive sound, a fissure appearing in its side. A chunk the size of a man fell to the sea with a splash.
Forcing herself to run, Jalcina made for the rope to climb back on board the ship with fear pounding through her veins.
The power she felt had not left her, but she did not trust it to save her from the reality of a falling mountain.
Onboard, the deck was deserted. She pounded across the boards with the sounds of the Spire collapsing behind her. At the corner of her eye, she saw more bodies in the waves, but none of them were any she recognized.
"Leaf!" Her voice rose in a strident scream breaking at the top.
He popped out of the hatch leading to below deck and she stumbled, her legs tangling and throwing her down. A moment later, he was beside her, but transfixed by the destruction following in her wake. His disbelief hung on his face.
"Mekan?"
Jalcina shook her head at his question.
"I don't understand."
The rest of the crew gathered around and the babble of their voices made Jalcina cover her ears. Answers she had none, but they wanted to know what happened. She could not explain how she had devoured a creature who might have once been a god. Kneeling there on the deck, she caressed the strength Wrepta offered her and the history it brought with it.
Now she knew about the stories Leaf told, of how Wrepta walked and Nalcet murdered. She knew of the everlasting anger between the two who had once been both men and friends. Her heart held Wrepta's guilt, not just at the loss of life but at the loss of everything else. It had been guilt that drove her into the sea, but even in her pain she did not abandon those closest to her.
Beneath the waves, Wrepta kept her closest ones. The sea protected them. Or it had, until Jalcina supped on Wrepta's strength and completed what the mage had been unable to do herself, kill her. If she dove down into the nearby sea, Jalcina would find an entire settlement of creatures who were not Lascha, but gave rise to the myth of them. The lost ones, the doll people, Mekan's chosen ones were offshoots. Of the water, but changed by it.
All were dead.
The magic sustaining them had not been destroyed, but changed. It no longer inhabited the water and thus they drowned. Taken by the very sea they thought of as home.
Leaf put his hands under Jalcina's arms and lifted her to her feet.
"We need to leave," she said.
"Trying now won't do any good. No good wind and the tide won't shift around the Spire until morning."
The remains of the Spire jutted from the water like destroyed dragon's teeth offering a view of the placid sea beyond it. Jalcina had misgivings about waiting. Danger haunted her thoughts. Yet she was no sailor, so wait they would have to. Padding across the deck, she opened the door to the room she had once considered her cell.
Leaf stood behind her.
"Are you sure he's dead?"
"Go to him," she said. "There is no doubt."
As if he needed her permission, Leaf left her then headed for the railing. Shaking her head, Jalcina shut the door behind her. If Mekan had been right, perhaps the wood could offer some protection. In the morning, they would sail. It would have to be soon enough.
In a Shockwave
The throne room of the cathedral hung with cinnamon smoke and fear. The Queen watched as her beloved stalked the room, shifting shape as he did back and forth, back and forth, a pendulum swing of his moods. He said nothing to her, but she could not help her notice.
Vexed.
Something vexed him.
Even the arrival of the boy had not caused such a stir. Descending with her pipe in hand, she drew him to a stop and for a moment, she wondered if the great city, her love, even saw her. His eyes, green orbs of strength, were cloudy and he turned to her with a half-eaten snarl. Yet she stood her ground.
"What is it?"
His answer came slow for him.
"Death."
She cocked her head to one side and slid her pipe into her mouth.
Vexed by Death. He would never die, not so long as he kept to his well.
Beneath the cathedral, hidden from all by the most zealous of adherents, the well of Backaran continued to give and take of the souls offered it. Her own soul lay hidden inside, sustaining her from without even as her body changed from within.
Her pipe smoke curled toward the far off ceiling as he moved around her, shifted to a shadow, then returned to what might have been considered his once state of humanity.
"Wrepta has died."
Of the five, Wrepta was the weakest link, the one who chose oblivion over responsibility. After so many centuries, Backaran ceased to hide from his role in the debacle of their existence. Now, it seemed Death had finally come for her.
The Queen awaited his words, wanting more, but did not receive it.
"Nalcet should be pleased."
The Queen chuckled, a metallic soun
d like broken bells. The once brothers had long since ceased to care for one another and she chose the side of her beloved against his adversary. Let him be pleased indeed.
"What of us?"
"Death comes, perhaps for even us."
He drew her close and dragged his fingers down her face in a gesture of almost affection.
"Soon. Soon."
Then he abandoned her and fled the room, leaving only her doubts in his wake.
Nalcet moved with a leisurely stride up the walkway to what others called his temple leaving the suggestions of warm footprints on the stones behind him. His attendants were gone, at his request, leaving him to his contemplation. They knew something was wrong, but not what and he did not feel the need to enlighten them yet.
Wrepta's death clutched at him with cold fingers leaving him with a chill he hadn't felt in centuries, the breath of mortality of his cheek. When one existed as long as him, it was easy to forget that mortal lives were short and often violent things. Over and done before they had even begun to flourish fully. Nalcet surrounded himself with those who lived longer by virtue of their connection to him, offering them passage to his well only in exchange for their loyalty.
If they proved disloyal, he cut them off with the ease of a barber snipping an errant curl. In return for their loyalty, he offered them strength, power, and a species of immortality.
Or so he thought.
Wrepta's distance meant her touch only ghosted against his when she wished it or he reached for her and he hadn't made the attempt since many years after she fell into the sea. There had been no point. She lay dreaming at the bottom of a sea half a world away, untouched. There he left her.
Loyalty to his own had not left him, but seeing as each of them had gone their own way, he did not seek them out.
In fact, had it not been for his son's unfortunate choice to breach the canyon of Backaran, he could have easily gone another century or more without interacting with his closest kin. Kendrick's choice left him making concessions to his brother in hopes of keeping the young man alive. He still served a purpose, even if Backaran did not know or care.
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