The Restless Shore

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

12 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Ruins of Tohrepur, Akanul

Uthalion stood over the flickering shadows of the cavern as Vaasurri told him of what lay slumbering inside, of the fate he suspected the Choir had intended for Ghaelya. Uthalion swayed slightly, caught in the endless current of song that ran hungry tendrils of searching melody over his skin and through his flesh. It demanded everything of him, crooning for him to abandon all else and end his days amid blooms and blood. Forcefully he pulled himself away, gasping for breath and shaking away the instinct to dive into the cavern and dash himself on the rocks below for just one glimpse of the beauty that called to him.

He tightly gripped the gold ring upon his finger, determined to not become another of the sirine’s pathetic fools, her crimson-stained Flock.

“Has she been down there long?” he asked.

“No,” Vaasurri answered. “Not long for what she faces. And Brindani?”

Roars of boundless rage and sibilant screams rang shrilly through the crystals, vibrating in the ground and sending choppy shivers along the wavy tips of the mistgrass. Uthalion gripped his sword, expecting monsters to come pouring through the forest at any moment, knowing that even if Brindani could fell Khault, he could not face the whole of Tohrepur alone.

“He’s … on his way,” he replied, turning, careful to keep his distance from the pit. “We’ve got to get her out of there. If she touches that thing-”

“Then we know what to do,” Vaasurri said. And though the killoren seemed not to move a muscle, his gleaming bone-sword shined briefly in the moonlight as if the weapon itself knew its own purpose. “One way or another, we know what to do.”

Uthalion knelt, staring into the dark thoughtfully, sobered by the idea of striking down the girl he’d led to this place. But he could not let the sirine’s song-her infection-spread. He imagined Ghaelya striding among the warrens of the aranea, an army of beguiled spiders in her wake, drawn to the sirine’s flowers and terrible caress. He saw her at the opening gates of Airspur and thought of the throngs she might enchant, a silver-tongued conqueror succeeding where the armies of the Abolethic Sovereignty had failed.

Twirling the gold band round and round his finger, it was evident what had to be done should things go badly. But like any decision that rested on the edge of a sword and a man’s determination to do the right thing, he didn’t like the taste of it.

“It’s always blood,” he muttered, stony eyed.

Something shambled through the crystal spires. Wet, fleshy sounds slapped against the spires as rough skin was dragged across the broken stones of the pathway. There came a low growl rumbling with power, a voice Uthalion recognized as little more than a dim reflection of the sirine’s. Standing, he leveled his sword, waiting stoically for the thing to appear, knowing that no matter what, it was not Brindani. “One way or another,” he repeated.

“No,” Ghaelya said, feeling the word cross her lips again but barely hearing it as she pulled herself away from the monstrous image of Tessaeril. She didn’t want to be so close, afraid that even proximity to her sister might make Tessaeril’s words happen, let time slip away until little remained but tears and death. Her throat burned, and she felt sick, but she kept her stomach and whispered hoarsely, “I can’t.”

Tessaeril did not interrupt, but held on to the wet rocks of the sirine’s shore and shivered as Ghaelya crossed her arms, binding her hands close to her chest where she could keep them still. She breathed deeply, staving off the effects of shock, and tried to think clearly, finding that all but impossible. Tessaeril shuddered as the song poured through her and pulsed in deep waves from between her blue lips. The walls hummed with its power, sending out an endless call to a trap where men no longer drowned, where their bones no longer decorated the wet cavern walls.

The fate that men found with the sirine had become much worse and the presence of Ghaelya’s sister seemed to only amplify the song’s power. With each slow and labored breath, the azure vines of the sirine’s flesh dug deeper into Tessaeril’s body, anchoring her to the malformed fey so that escape alone would surely have meant certain death.

Hope had fabricated within Ghaelya illusions of finding Tessaeril hurt, but alive. She had imagined that they would escape the Choir and return to Airspur. Their mother would receive them with open arms, scolding Ghaelya for leaving without a word or message, but happy to have her daughters safe and sound. There would be a family meal. Their father would complain about coin or politics and perhaps grudgingly acknowledge Ghaelya’s courage in setting out to rescue her twin. They would sleep peacefully and wake the next morning to a new day. You must do this.

Tessaeril’s voice was unavoidable. Ghaelya could not cover her ears or run away, for it would find her, either in the long restless nights or in her dreams when she could no longer avoid the exhaustion that would run her down. When she looked on her sister, she wished she could mask the chaos of emotion that twisted her features, somehow convey a sense of hope. But in Tessaeril’s eyes there was no hope, only a pained and suffering resignation.

I ran from them when they brought me to the ruins … I tried to escape, but the song drew me here … and I fell … The sirine uses me and the song … grows more powerful …

Ghaelya tried to speak, but a knot caught her words, entangled them in her throat, and tried to replace them with the wracking sobs which she refused to give in to. It hurt to do so, and she squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her teeth and digging her fingernails into her sides. She inhaled sharply, the sound rippling through the sirine’s mass, wavering the subtle undertones of the dreaming-song of the plaguechanged fey.

“I came so far,” she managed, “To save you.”

Tessaeril nodded slowly, pulling herself closer, able to move within the perimeter of the sirine’s waterlike body, but not beyond it. Shaking, she held out her right arm, exposing the gruesome network of vines, the sirine’s hair, that had flowed through her body. Thick veins from Tessaeril’s legless torso mingled with those of the slumbering fey, fed by the sirine’s lifeforce. Her dark eyes pleaded, her webbed fingers spread wide as she gestured at her disfigurements, changes that no known magic could overcome.

To save me … you must go a little farther.

Ghaelya’s hope had also turned to darker thoughts beyond Tessaeril’s unlikely rescue. She’d imagined any number of horrors that might have befallen her sister, that might have left Tessaeril’s lifeless body upon an altar of sacrifice or cast aside amid Tohrepur’s ruins. Dried blood, jagged wounds, even the predations of scavengers had filled her imagination when she indulged the hopelessness of her optimism. But she would have been prepared on some level. She would have been ready to collect the broken form of her sister and carry it away. Shamefully, she’d thought of what she might have said, prayers she might have sung to ensure her sister rested in some kind of peace, all the things mortals could do to ease the hurt of losing someone they loved. An image of a gravesite flashed through her mind, herself standing nearby; she tried to imagine what it must be like, as if it were someone else.

“We can find a way,” she blurted out, grasping hold of the fleeting, ragged edges of hope that threatened to leave her altogether. Denial crept selfishly into her thoughts, and she welcomed it for the brief respite, the faint thought that everything could be made better if only she had more time. “There must be something … The Choir-”

Is too powerful… Should you fail they will force your hand … They will use the bond we share … I will sing forever, and you will walk, singing ruin with the sirine’s voice … and we will both become their slaves … You must finish this.

Sounds of battle echoed distantly from above. Ghaelya turned to the open mouth of the cavern, and the stars glittered in the soft blanket of night, winking at her as if from another world. Khault’s words could not reach her, but the effect of his voice on the song was unmistakable, breaking the melody slightly and causing the steady stream to waver. Tessaeril winced, flinching at the sound and straining to keep it at bay. It was then that Ghaelya felt hope slip beyond her reach and sensed the heavy presence of the sword at her side.

Her sister’s pleading eyes glanced at the blade.

The dreamers paced nervously along the edge of the crystal spires, growling as they gathered east and west of the sirine’s cavern, their glassy eyes fixed on the shambling thing that approached. Uthalion watched the beasts warily, though they made no move to enter the clearing and simply acted as curious witnesses to what was to come. Vaasurri crouched in the mist-grass, shaking his dark, grasslike mane and stretching his lithe body. The fine edge of his bone-sword still glinted dangerously in the moonlight.

Sweat and blood beaded like pink jewels and dripped in streams across the puckered edges of a scarred visage that leered at them from among the spires, prowling into the edges of the mist-grass. Uthalion fought the brief sense of relief he felt as Khault approached, knowing that Brindani must have fallen and using that knowledge to hone the cool fury within him that patiently awaited the first cut into Khault’s flesh. The old farmer’s shoulders were hunched and misplaced, bent at strange angles that exposed knobs of spiny bone. Gill-slits along his throat hissed with bubbles of crimson foam. Uthalion shook his head, pitying the nightmare a good man had become.

“Look well, Captain,” Khault uttered hideously. “I was remade in her dreams, blessed by her singing … A far cry from my nightmares in Caidris.”

“You defended your home; gave food, water, and shelter to strangers,” Uthalion replied angrily. “You took a stand and lost your wife. The nightmares of Caidris were earned-honorable scars that many men might envy, that I envied. What I do now honors that memory.”

Khault chuckled, a disquieting rumble edged with high-pitched echoes. He stood taller, growths writhing behind his back as he slid forward, his ruined face arching low on a distended neck. His tattered robes writhed with movement, as if he were unfolding, remaking himself into new shapes. Uthalion noted the fresh blood dripping from the torn, bone white robes and felt his pulse quicken.

“Did you know that I prayed for death, Captain? An honorable man weeping and begging to die?” Khault said. His features twisted in a snarl of contempt, exposing rows of sharp, triangular teeth. “Is this the answer to an honorable prayer? Is this what you envy?”

“No,” Uthalion growled, his lip quivering in anger. “You’re just a body. Just the remains of the man I knew.”

“Shall you bury me, Captain?” Khault said, crawling closer, his thin legs followed by a mane of tentacles growing from his back. Uthalion could see where scabrous, toughened skin grew in patches on his arms and neck. Long spines, nearly translucent and needle-sharp, protruded in rows from his jawline, giving him the look of something dredged from the darkest depths of a forgotten ocean where there was no need for the eyes he had scratched from his skull. “Would you drag me to Caidris and lay me down beside my wife?”

“You don’t understand,” Uthalion said, taking a step forward and motioning for Vaasurri to flank. “I don’t care what happens to you now … as long as it hurts.”

Uthalion charged, slashing at Khault’s arms. The twisted man rolled backward, rearing high as whiplike tentacles grabbed at Uthalion’s legs. They laced around his boots, tugging him off balance and laying him flat on his back. He hit the ground with a grunt as Khault bent low, his claws reaching for Uthalion’s face. But he kept his sword moving, slicing into the hands that sought to smother him. Khault howled in pain and skittered backward, releasing Uthalion’s legs as Vaasurri joined the struggle.

The killoren was quick, but his blade cut only ragged wounds that seemed to have no effect. Uthalion rolled to his feet just as Vaasurri was batted away, sliding through the mist-grass. Khault towered over him, hissing through his teeth and spreading his arms wide as if welcoming the steel that sought to pierce him. Uthalion took the opening and thrust at Khault’s stomach, too angry to worry about himself or draw the fight on any longer. The tip of the blade slid on the tough, slick skin, scraping a gouge that bled a thick, clear fluid.

Tentacles shot forward beneath Uthalion’s blade, punching him in the gut and staggering him backward as Khault knelt low and unleashed his terrible voice. Pure sound slammed into Uthalion like an invisible wall, hurling him to the edge of the sirine’s cavern. The back of his head pounded with pain, and stars filled his eyes as he gasped for breath.

“You pained my Choir, Captain, and have spurned our blessings,” Khault purred at the end of his thunderous attack. He slid sinuously through the mist-grass. “Again you bring suffering to those I cherish.”

“You left me little choice,” Uthalion spat, tasting blood from his lip as his hand fumbled through the mist-grass, searching for his dropped sword and trying to stall for time. “Besides, you still don’t seem to understand … I don’t care.”

Vaasurri’s curving bone-blade bit deep into Khault’s shoulder, producing yet another howl of pain. The killoren grasped at the lashing tentacles, and the pair fell away in a blur, tumbling through the mist-grass as Uthalion rolled to his knees. Darkness clouded his vision for a moment. His hand closed on the cool metal of his sword, and he tried not to let relief and dizziness lay him back down.

Twin voices whispered from the pit before him, echoing through the rock, one nearly indistinguishable from the other. The words were lost, and he tried not to hear, leaving Ghaelya to her task, her decision. He hoped she would make the right one. And if not, he hoped he would live long enough to make the decision for her.

He stumbled on his feet, finding his balance and feeling a warm, steady drip of wetness on the back of his neck. Lost for a moment and staring at the ground in confusion, he fought the urge to shake his head. Breathing deeply, he faced the blurred forms of Khault and Vaasurri, just as the killoren’s body was hurled past him. Uthalion slashed into the first tentacle that reached for him, but could not move fast enough to stop the next.

Tiny teeth bit into his armor as the tentacles bore him down, holding him in a vicelike grip that brought stars to his eyes. The crystal spires reached for the moon overhead as he groaned and tried to sit up, to fight the pressure that held him down. Khault crawled closer, leaning over him and staring at the cavern mouth.

“You struggle in vain, Captain,” Khault said. Long streams of wildflower-smelling spittle and blood dribbled between his teeth. “The twins embrace even now.”

Uthalion fought the nauseating dark that trembled at the edges of his sight. His arms felt like leaden weights, his sword just an immovable length of steel. He kicked and pushed against the ground to no avail. And as he turned his face away from Khault’s hot breath, he caught sight of irregular ripples flowing through the mist-grass, and beyond, the dreamers’ glassy eyes had turned to the north.

“The flesh is weak, Captain,” Khault muttered. “It bends to the will of the Song and cannot stand when the Lady calls.”

A droning growl emanated from the spires, and Khault turned, hissing as the dreamers prowled to the south, their flashing stares fixed upon him. The immense weight of Khault lifted from Uthalion’s chest, and he coughed, fighting for air as the tentacles slid away. He staggered to his feet as Khault snarled at the seemingly defiant beasts among the spires. Behind him, lurching quietly from the north, a shadow fell upon the mist-grass.

“I’m still standing,” Uthalion grumbled hoarsely, spitting up blood and wavering on his feet. His sword dragged weakly through the grass, the smoky tendrils lapping at the blade. “I suppose you’ve forgotten just how strong flesh can be.”

Khault stalked forward, his clawed hands twitching and the tentacles sliding through the mist-grass like a low tide. The dreamers stilled their growling and anxious pacing, lowering their heads as a piercing note keened loudly through the clearing. Khault’s body tensed, his back arched in pain, and blood streamed from what remained of his ears. A sword ripped through his chest and tore at his pale skin like a knife through paper.

Uthalion stumbled, his sword falling from his hand as he spied the bloodied face of Brindani at Khault’s back. Deafening roars shook the clearing, rippling outward in waves from the struggling pair as they fell back in a tangle of blood, steel, and thrashing flesh. Khault screamed in denial of the blade that worked its way through him. Uthalion tried not to see the details of the half-elf’s injuries-the limp broken arm, the hideous wound across his stomach, or the exposed section of scalp over his right eye-but his eye was quicker than his good judgment.

Uthalion fell to his knees, his hands clasped to the sides of his head as the ground quaked and the air hummed. The endless song embraced him through it all, caressing his tired limbs with a soothing melody, a silken thread of beguiling voices amid the chaos and blood. He glanced down into the cavern, and the flickering shadows of nightmare clawed at his ability to resist as he fell forward and crawled to its edge.

Howls carried softly down through the cavern, an uncanny compliment to the song as the dreamers raised their voices in either sorrow or exultation, Ghaelya wasn’t sure. Tessaeril shivered on the rocks, weak and almost frantic with barely hidden impatience, her blue-black eyes fixed on the sword at Ghaelya’s side.

The dreamers were here first… They despise the Choir … and rejoice that one of them has fallen …

The words were quiet and muttering, absent thoughts drifting through the song as Tessaeril reached out tentatively, her fingertips crawling toward the sheathed blade then drawing back. She shuddered and twisted her bound torso, her eyes pleading for release.

“Does it hurt?” Ghaelya asked as she let her hand slip to the sword at her belt, feeling the rough surface of its leather-wrapped handle and pulling clear the fastening loop of the sheath.

No … not anymore … There is no sleep here … not for me … Her dreams are all I have, all I see … endlessly … The sword …

Ghaelya’s body was numb, moving slowly and almost of its own accord, distant and mechanical. A handspan of blade cleared the sheath, and Tessaeril looked upon its edge almost hungrily, her lip quivering at the sight of a promised freedom from the sirine.

“I love you, Tess,” Ghaeyla said. The words slowed the steady pull on the gleaming blade. The steel reflected the ethereal glow of the sirine’s body like a beacon. Her sister did not answer, straining as the song rose and fell, shaking her frail body and digging deeper into her nearly translucent flesh, her once strong fire drowned in the sirine’s grip.

The blade continued.

“It’s always blood,” Ghaelya whispered softly, remembering the previous night’s dream and speaking the words that had been spoken to her. She swallowed hard, and the blade fell free, scraping on the rocks and shining brightly. It blurred her vision, and she blinked, releasing the tears that had collected there. “I’m sorry.”

There’s nothing to be sorry for.

Her arm struggled with the sword’s weight, and she tried several times to lift it, to break it free of her every impulse to cast it away. Inexorably it rose and hovered over her shoulder, tapping lightly on the leather guard. Her arm obeyed her commands, though her heart had not yet joined in the necessity of the act.

“I want to believe that,” she said, her voice breaking. “Forgive me.”

There is nothing to forgive.

It seemed a gentle push, lifting the blade and letting it fall. The steel blurred at the end of her arm and buried itself deeply in weak flesh, breaking easily through brittle bones. Ghaelya couldn’t breathe-she didn’t want to. She cursed the pulse that pounded in her ears and the sudden inability to close her eyes, to not see the strange dark blood and the slowly withering expression of shock. Vines shook and twitched, ripples flowed through the sirine’s mass, and the great dark eyes turned in their slumber.

Somewhere inside of her, ice-cold and overpowering, there was a scream, but she couldn’t find it. The sword fell from her hand.

And the sirine screamed for her.

Damps rocks cooled Uthalion’s palms as he stared into the ethereal blue glow, the song’s endless tide washing through his body. He pulled toward it, enthralled and unable to resist. At the bottom of the cavern entrance he found Ghaelya sitting with her back to him, a nightmarish mirror image slumped on the rocks in front of her. Dazed, his eyes wandered to the sword lodged in the lifeless body. Whispered words echoed over and over through the song, growing faster and faster as they blurred together, ripping through the air at a frantic pace until they were little more than a discordant keening.

“Forgive me.”

There is nothing to forgive.

Gods have mercy, he thought, as the song was unleashed.

Whatever veil had kept him from the true force of the sirine’s singing was lifted. He gasped at the exultant power and thought his heart would burst. A single wave of perfection flooded his senses, a thrall so deep he never wanted to be free. And he was ashamed at the meager, imperfect soul he brought to lay upon the glowing altar at her feet. Every muscle in his body flexed, and his back arched painfully, assaulted by what seemed an entire lifetime of memories in a long, rattling breath of transcendent joy and sorrow.

When it ended, and the taste of blood filled his mouth, a gaping pit of oblivion filled his mind, swallowing the heaven he had found hiding in Tohrepur.

The song withered to little more than a whisper, a faint longing that floundered weakly in his ears as it trickled through the cavern. He resisted it easily, as a man once caught in the open sea withstands even the strongest tides of the shore. He sat up, rested his head in his hands, and averted his eyes from the ethereal glow and the slumped silhouette before it.

Though the translucent form and haunting melody of the plaguechanged sirine filled the cave, it was Ghaelya’s stilled silence that dominated the murmuring song.

“The flesh is strong,” he whispered under his breath. “The flesh is strong.”

Emerging from the cavern they found Vaasurri, awake and kneeling beside the prone form of Brindani. The dreamers had dragged away the carcass of Khault, fighting over it and tearing it apart among the forest of glittering spires, but they had not touched the half-elf. A few sat by watching curiously as Ghaelya knelt at Brindani’s side and gently closed his eyes.

Mist-grass rippled around the pair, its deep green dulled by splotches of rust red.

Uthalion joined Vaasurri some distance away, sensing no threat from the beasts as they padded peacefully to the sirine’s cavern. They settled into the mist-grass and formed a circle around the mouth of the cave as it whispered and sang to them. Several licked Khault’s blood from their faces, and they growled if anyone came too near the cavern’s circle, a behavior that assuaged Uthalion’s concerns over the sleeping sirine. There was a cruel, possessive intelligence in the dreamers’ expressions-he supposed they would not so easily lose their dreaming Lady again.

Darkness still reigned over Tohrepur as they exited the crystal forest, the other end of a night that had already begun its slow journey toward dawn and a new day for the restless ruins. There was no sign of the Choir, though Uthalion imagined he could hear pained moans from deep in the city streets. The sirine’s vines still blanketed the stone walls and cobbled avenues, though the life in them seemed withered slightly- their flowers were less red, the scent not as sweet. At every corner they met the tortured gazes of the sirine’s thralls, the Flock.

The pale citizens of the Choir’s doomed cult stared strangely at one another, curious and dazed. Some made their way to the spires, frantically seeking for the song that had ended so abruptly, its river now a trickling stream. Others babbled incoherently, frustrated as they tried to form the words they had not used in so long, their minds shredded by restless nights and endless waking dreams. Still others sat and wept, rocking back and forth on street corners and inside the hollowed buildings, quietly mourning either the shattered thrall of the sirine or the slowly returning memories of lives lost.

Uthalion barely felt the weight of Brindani in his arms, carrying instead the heavy burden of the half-elf’s memory as the hauntingly quiet stride of Ghaelya led the way out of Tohrepur. The journey home would be long and difficult, but he would sleep when he was tired, and he would dream of his wife and daughter.

Starlight glittered through the crystal forest long after the moon had set, and the dreamers could not yet smell the warming rise of the sun. They gathered, making their way through the shadows to sit and sprawl in the mist-grass around the cavern of the sirine. A few wandered to its edge and stared curiously at the blue glow upon the glistening rocks inside. Sleepless and tireless, it was long before they settled, troubled by thoughts that were new to them, an awareness that was both a comfort and a curse. Regret and pity and hate tugged at their minds, emotions at odds with the primal urges that pulsed in their hearts.

More than the mere wolves they’d been ages ago when a single pack had stumbled upon the slumbering sirine, they wondered at the new sense of fear they felt for the dreaming lady. Some paced restlessly, flexing their claws and baring fangs at each imagined enemy among the stone forest. They watched the spires, listened for the slightest noise, alert for any sign of the men that had come and stolen what had been theirs since, what they understood to be, the beginning of time.

At length they calmed, and as one they stared off beyond the spires, a low humming forming in their throats as the lady’s true dream returned to them and them alone. Though they rested upon grass and dirt and were surrounded by towers of sparkling stone, the longing, endless song of the sirine carried them back to the shores and depths of another world and another time.

Their shining eyes glazed over and glowed fiercely as the song rose and fell like crashing waves. It sang in their blood and matched the bestial chant that droned throughout the forest of crystals.

White birds danced on the air in the sirine’s dream, diving through warm winds and landing on soft sand. Distant wooden vessels of men grasped the wind in white sails, casting nets into the sea. Vast dark waters sparkled beneath a starlit sky as blue-black waves flashed and rolled restless to the shore.