by Chris Howard
"Maria Draughn."
Corina felt a wave of something soft float over her thoughts, a warm breeze, a mother's breath on her child. She shuddered, certain that what she felt was the glow of admiration from Aleximor. Then he confirmed her fear.
"Corina, you definitely improve on acquaintance."
In what manner have I improved?
"To name a few, civility. You have a strong will. You have a calculating mind, Corina. There is strategy in your words. I will take your advice, but I have one task to complete before we explore the ship."
What is it?
He ignored her, looking around the room, mumbling to himself, “They took my knife."
He stepped back into the medic's quarters and closed the door softly, heading for the bathroom alcove. He rummaged through the drawers and pulled out a sharp-tipped pair of stainless hair-cutting scissors.
Corina stopped her thoughts, alarmed as he grabbed the scissors like a dagger, her blue fingernail polish, chipping but intact, the webbing between her fingers tucked neatly into her fist.
What are you going to do with that?
"I cannot do this alone. I am going to bind our handy friend to me, and use him to do some of the more difficult work. He's fresh, so this will not be as dangerous as raising the Spaniards. I will not have to deal with Akast?.” He paused, considering something, then added, “On the other hand, you're fully alive."
I've always taken that to be a good thing.
He made a disdainful ticking noise with his tongue. “Normally, yes. But for someone like me, a whole, unadulterated life is a burden. It limits my abilities."
Aleximor approached the body carefully as if it could jump up at any moment with a surprise attack. The pinkish brown liquid was drying in the carpet, leaving a darker ring at the edges. It was like wet sand at the shoreline, except the intestinal soup was crusting up along the perimeter.
Aleximor crouched next to the corpse and turned Pinnet's head so that the blank stare of empty bloody eye sockets faced him.
"Stiffening in the neck and shoulders."
She felt the urge to wash her hands. What are you, like a coroner?
"I do not understand the word, Corina, although, it is similar to your name. Does it have something to do with the king or crown? Are you a coroner?"
A coroner is a medical examiner, someone who determines the cause of death. And no, I am not, nor do I want to be a coroner. She couldn't hold back an accompanying contemptuous remark. Nor do I want to be a bone-gatherer—or whatever you are.
"Ostologos is an old title, the sorcerer who helps the king or queen manage the dead army, the Olethren. I am, however, much more than that. I have my own fortress and army, bound to me alone, and far superior to the king's ancient army of the drowned dead."
Knowing this was a ridiculous question given what she'd already witnessed, she threw it out just to see what he'd respond with: What good is an army that's dead?
He sighed.
"When my eyes last looked on the abyss, there were over a hundred thousand of them in the Olethren, pulled from broken ships, sea caves, from the floor silt that swallowed their bones. There may be many more of them now. They are the remains of surfacers who have drowned. The Sea has taken their spirits, and in many cases, with the right enticement, can be made to relinquish them."
Corina wondered about this. He said the Sea with a capital S, making it sound as if the Sea were someone hawking souls for the right price.
He picked up her thoughts.
"Very dangerous. Tempestuous bitch. She goes by many names. Akast?—the Erratic One—is what she's called herself with me. She takes many forms, has power over the ocean's currents, and she owns anyone who drowns in them. You met her when I forced her to give me the Spaniards. My ancestors bargained with her, and—for a price—she has allowed us to bring the dead back from death into our world and bind them to the soul of the king of the Thalassogen?is."
Seaborn. She translated the word without thinking. These drowned dead people can fight?
"Walk and swim and hold weapons ... and above all, kill. They kill everything they touch. Some are given spears or other devices of destruction. They bite, they claw out eyes, they snap bones. And they cannot be stopped. The Olethren do not surrender and they do not take prisoners. Once the Seaborn king or queen releases them, they do not stop until all life is driven from the foe's stronghold. Then they return to their fortress."
And this happens often?
"They have been used by the Thalassogen?is for over two thousand years. I have only seen a king bring them out for war twice. They were created by the current royal house, Alkimides, in order to bring down the former royal house, Telkhines. An immortal would fear them. They can be broken individually, but the army cannot be defeated without defeating them all, and with so many of them, that is impossible."
While he spoke, Aleximor's eyes drifted to the dead man's greasy blue coveralls, stopping on the oval patch with the name, Pinnet stitched into it.
"Pinnet."
The bone-gatherer bent closer, turning his neck to line up his face with the corpse's pasty gray face. He dragged the zipper down, tugging the blue material, exposing the upper chest and shoulder on the right side.
"Pinnet. Mr. Pinnet.” Corina shuddered hearing her own voice sing to the corpse. “I hope, for your sake, that you will be a good deal more helpful to me in death than you were in life."
With that, Aleximor drew his arm back and hammered the scissors deep into Pinnet's shoulder. Blood oozed from the wound instead of spurting. There was no heart pumping it through the body. It pooled in the depression made by Aleximor's fist, thick and oily, seeping between his fingers.
What are you doing? Corina shrieked the thought.
"Something the king's Olethren cannot do—take the souls of those they kill. My army is far fewer, only five thousand, yet far greater in ability and speed than the king's. I have also devised a method for harnessing the psychai of the freshly slain, a temporary binding that passes the harvested psyche back to the master binder—me."
With that, he got back to work. He slammed the scissors into Pinnet five times, cutting away a flap of muscle, spraying wet chunks of flesh and chips of bone against the wall, splatters of it peppering Corina's face. He was after the bone, for the same reason he'd taken pieces of the four Spaniards. Corina watched in horror as Aleximor raised one of the larger fragments right in front of her face, and she saw her own fingers running with blood, slick on her nails, gathering in the webbing between each finger and damming up against the ridge of muscle across the top of her palm.
It hurt her ... mind to see her own bloody hands, but she didn't feel the least bit sick—because Aleximor didn't.
Aleximor sang softly, a litany about death and life and the trading of one for the other. The cramps started in Corina's chest, stabbing into her belly; muscles contracted, squeezing her lungs, tearing them from her ribs. Her body felt too small for her bones. Her joints ached, and there was a separate agony in the space between each vertebra. The color drained from several hundred strands of hair, going pure white from scalp to tip.
She gasped the words, What have you done to me!
"Death, Corina Lairsey. I have given some of this life in order to bring Pinnet back. He is now bound to me, completely in my control.” He paused at another jolt of spinal pain. “Do ... not ... worry.” He breathed, squeezing tears from Corina's eyes. “I have accepted some of death and given some of your life in return. It is perfectly safe. I have done this before. Pinnet is fresh and will not require a significant amount.” His words trailed off into a gurgling rasp and saliva oozed from her sagging mouth. Corina's bloody hand opened and the chip of bone had been reduced to powder, mixing grittily with Pinnet's blood.
"Slowly. It must be done in very small amounts."
Until what? Answer me! What is the result?
"I will have restored the form of the soul and position I once created for myself. Until I hav
e traded every last piece of life away, and I have become not dead, but death itself. That is when I cannot be harmed in life, and where complete power lies."
Corina's thoughts split and shuddered apart, crumbling into uselessness.
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Chapter Seventeen
Ritual Drowning
In the absence of any studies or teachers of fire magic, Lady Kassandra of the Alkimides relied on her influence with the immortals, the sea daimones—especially Ochleros, to teach her the methods for summoning and manipulating fire, molten rock, and controlling their energy and reactions. She learned many other skills from them as well.
—Michael Augustus Henderson, notes on a conversation with the Wreath-wearer
* * * *
Jill thumbed the remote, swung her purse off her shoulder, and hopped into the minivan's driver's seat. The morning sun, low over the ocean, beamed through the tinted glass windows. The side doors slid back automatically with a growl of metal wheels on tracks. Nicole jumped in the third-row seat. On the opposite side of the van, Aunt Phaidra nodded her head, thanking the door for its apparent courtesy, and slid into the seat.
Kassandra got in next to her, holding in a smile at Phaidra's alien world alertness, eyes darting to everything that moved, touching unrecognizable knobs and vents. She nodded again at the door as it slid closed automatically.
Phaidra played with the armrests, which swiveled up and down while everyone else put their seatbelts on. Jill started the engine, and the jet of air from the vents startled Kallixene, and made Phaidra jump into some sort of seated combat position, one hand out, fingers spread, and the other curled into a fist.
Kassandra rested a warm hand on her arm, and leaned close. She slid her eyes forward, indicating Jill and Kallixene. “While the girlies are getting their nails done, would you like to shop somewhere else?"
Phaidra spread her fingers, staring down at her nails curiously. “What colors do they paint them?"
Kassandra shrugged. “Anything you want.” She reached up front and tapped Jill on the shoulder. “What about the webbing between Lady Kallixene's fingers?"
"No problem.” Jill gave her a sympathetic look with one eyebrow raised in the mirror. She kept the look as she turned and backed the van into Atlantic Avenue. “I told Maxine my grandmother's a mermaid."
"You what?” Nicole shouted from the third row seat.
Jill took the sunglasses off the top of her head and slid them on, pushing the transmission into drive. She adjusted the side mirrors as they sped west toward Route 1, and then she glanced back in the rearview.
"I told her that Lady Kallixene's a mermaid and she wants her nails done. Something retro gorgeous, like a reverse French in a sky blue, but with something new and fun—a glittery edge or stars, you know.” She saw the worried looks from Phaidra, Kass, and Nic. “What? Everything's covered. Maxine's cool. This is a private appointment. And just to be sure I told her that if she told anyone about the mermaid thing, my grandmother would turn her into a barracuda."
Kallixene smiled, pleased for the most part—but there was a sinister edge that made it clear that if Maxine talked, the best she could hope for was a barracuda. She patted Jill's arm indulgently. “We're fine."
The air jetted from the vents and Phaidra kept tilting them to direct the currents toward Kassandra, who eventually reached up and shut off all the air to the back seats.
"So...” Nicole began, “...tell me and Jill about the drowning thing.” No one really wanted to talk about it, but that had never stopped Nicole. She cleared her throat from her seat in the back row and continued. “What happens? Kass says it hurts a little. Who's going to be there? Is it all underwater? Give me the whole run down, start to finish."
Kassandra leaned sideways against the sliding door. “Did you ask Michael Henderson?"
Nicole shook her head.
Phaidra twisted around and grabbed Nicole's hand, firm but affectionate. “Gregor will be there. Lady Kassandra, some of our guards. Mother will sing to you. You will release all of your air. Close your eyes then. Do not watch it rise above you, for I have heard that surfacers see their life in the air they breathe, and watching it leave their bodies is distressing. Do not panic. Let the ocean come inside you. You will become one of us. It will be safe with Mother guiding the change to your bodies."
Jill made a face and glanced in the rearview at the mention of bodies changing.
"Zits,” said Kassandra. “That's another thing. My skin's clear in the water. But it never fails. I won't be above the waves an hour before a raging pustule shows up on my nose or chin.” She pointed to one along her jaw.
Jill made another face in the mirror.
"The change is different for other mammals and cetaceans,” Kassandra added. “Our dolphins and orcas may be sea creatures, but they need to live in depths unnatural to them and they can't surface for air, so they must change, too."
"Michael did explain that once,” said Nicole.
Kallixene listened intently without turning around. She pulled down the visor and lifted the lid to her mirror. The lights blinded her for a moment, and she squinted through her lashes at the close-up of her face.
Phaidra turned back, the vanity mirror diverting her thoughts. “What do you have around your eyes, Mother?"
"What is it called? Eye liner?"
Jill added, “A metallic violet liner that matches her top."
Kallixene let Jill dress her, and she came out of her bedroom wearing a black skirt and hose with a sleeveless top made of some purplish material that warped and pulsed in iridescent splashes when she moved. Nicole had muttered something about “taking Grandma clubbing.” Phaidra had stared at her mother as if she didn't recognize her. Kassandra had simply shaken her head.
"What changes exactly?” Jill looked at Phaidra in the mirror and then at Kallixene.
"You will not feel the cold in the water or the pressure,” said Phaidra.
"Your hearing is affected,” said Kassandra. “Your eyes will become more sensitive, but most of the changes are on the inside, doing things that permit your body to take in the sea and live off its power. It only works in the water. The hardest part is coming back out to the Thin. You have to get the water out of your lungs. Your new power will help you with this, but it burns a little."
Nicole slouched in her seat, stared thoughtfully out the window, and whispered, “My new power."
Kallixene slapped the mirror shut, swung up the visor, and turned in her seat to give Kassandra a hard stare. “And what surprise do you have up your sleeve?"
Kassandra just smiled. “It wouldn't be a surprise then, would it?"
* * * *
Jill swung into a space right in front of the Triple M (Mad Maxine's Manicures) and killed the engine, jumping out of the minivan with a delight that seemed to halve the gravity of the entire planet.
"Come on, Grandmother, we're right on time.” She held the door for Lady Kallixene, and waited a moment for any other takers.
Kassandra and Nicole glanced at their watches, wondering how eight minutes after the hour could be considered “on time.” Phaidra glared through the open door at the scrawny heavily eye-linered, nose-ringed teen with stringy blond hair manning the cash register.
She shook her head, and turned to Nicole. “Where else can we go?"
"This way. See you in a few, Jillie,” she shot over her shoulder, and headed across the parking lot to a mega sporting goods store.
"A few ... minutes?” Phaidra asked hopefully.
"Hours,” Nic and Kass harmonized.
Inside the store, Kassandra had to lead Phaidra around by the elbow, because her aunt kept stopping in the middle of the aisle and staring at the boats and paragliders hanging from the ceiling. “Come on, we'll check out Zypheria's favorite place in the store."
Nicole chewed her lip and followed them. “Diving and swimming section?"
"No, we go down that aisle for a laugh. Soon, you will too. Hu
nting's her favorite section. You should see her with the crossbows. It's like Christmas. If I let her, she'd be in here for hours, chatting with the geezers behind the counter about carbon fiber gunstocks, arrow ballistics, and killing penetration. She's very discreet with her fingers—the webbing, and completely lies about her underwater purposes.” She gave them a lopsided smile. “Of course, they all fell in lust with her when she told them her favorite time to hunt was in the pouring rain.” Kassandra dropped her voice. “I usually have to drag her out of here. She thinks it's funny. It's damned embarrassing. If she's here more than fifteen minutes, all the men line up at the front counter, right against it, the one with the fishing reels..."
"Why?"
"Let's just say my Zypheria arouses—not another word, Eupheron—arouses certain thoughts in them. I'm guessing it has something to do with fantasies of her running through the forest in a soaking wet T-shirt, no bra, and a loaded crossbow."
Sure enough, when the three of them approached the hunting section, one of the salesmen, a gray-haired red-nosed man in a short-sleeved collar shirt, spotted Kassandra, grinned and asked, “Did you bring the huntress with you?"
Nicole ran with it, smirking at the old man. Then in a flat bored voice, she said, “Artemis sent us down to look for stiffer quarrels."
He went red, cleared his throat, and pretended to straighten the stack of safety guides on the glass counter. “What can I do for you ladies?"
Kassandra brought her hand down flat and her name bracelet rapped against the glass. “Same thing. Let's see the crossbows."
An hour and a half later, with their heads stuffed with crossbow stats, “over 350 FPS of velocity, a nice flat trajectory, includes a fiber-optic sight,” and a tree of numbers hanging off terms like “draw weight” and “power stroke,” they walked away from the counter with three big boxes and several bags of accessories, mostly ammunition. Phaidra stared down the old man who jokingly asked, “You stocking up for a war?"
