Chapter 8
“So we’re going to turn this in, right?” asked one of the men on the shore.
“Yes, we’ve decided to be stupid about it,” agreed one swimmer from the center of the water. It was the one who’d claimed to have gotten it before.
“Oh, the blight upon you!” swore the other swimmer in the dark lagoon, and he turned, pulling hard toward the shore. The blighted one followed.
I ran between dunes and broken trees. Knotted pines had fallen over. Rifts had been driven into sand and dune, and narrow rivulets crawled through them. I could see where the hills had sunk, and where they would level out as wind and rain would shave the sand bar’s rough edges. But I also saw huge shelves of black stone up on their sides like broken dinner plates dropped from a picnic. Mallens’s stomps had lifted the bedrock here, driven it down there, and hills like the Flatirons of Thango rose out of flat beaches. They gave me great cover.
Around a jetty I found the sandbar the five had stopped to rest on, but it wasn’t connected to the land. Between us was a submerged section of dark water, filled with silt and black weeds. It looked about knee deep. I could run across, but they’d hear and see me coming. Their spit of sand had no dunes.
I could wait and hit them when they crossed. If I timed it right, I could catch the few in front and put them down while the others were still in the water. That might cause problems depending on who had the sword, but it seemed better than bull-rushing the five of them.
I hid and waited. There was some argument I couldn’t catch, and I broke cover to get closer. They didn’t notice.
“I’m agreeing with you!” said the disagreeable agreer. “We all agreed to be stupid, and so stupid we shall be. We’re going to turn it in, because Mallens will give us a reward and certainly not just take it as his due. We aren’t going to take this obvious item of power to the mists and and make a party palace out of it! We’ll stay in our little house instead of making a mansion because all the partying would distract us from our complaining time!”
Someone sighed. “Osret,” he said, slowly and as if in great pain.
“What?” yelled Osret. “Who wants all that party sex? Clearly, not anyone here.”
“If this is one of the weapons used to try to kill Mallens, do you really think we should keep it?” asked another one. “Does that seem remotely wise?”
“Of course not. We definitely shouldn’t transform it into something nothing alike, because Mallens will clearly start watching the property market for mist palaces when he needs to find assassins. Blessings of feast and fortune, you’re so smart! There’s certainly no way we could hide a sword.”
Someone else sighed.
They all looked so tired except for Osret. He took advantage of their silence.
“And we certainly couldn’t do something worthwhile with it, like give it to the ghost. This is only exactly what she asked for, and then we’d get revenge on the man who killed your mother,” Osret almost screamed.
“You want to use a forbidden weapon to hire a ghost? Osret, what part of that plan could go right?”
“She’s a ghost! She disposes of things so they are never found. She’s a ghost!” Now Osret was yelling.
Another repeated, “You want to use a forbidden weapon-”
Osret said, “It’s not forbidden. Mallens doesn’t even know it exists!”
“Who cares?” interjected a third. “Are you going to argue with him if he finds out? Claim ex post facto rules don’t count? He’s the Lord of Creation! He’ll stomp you to death and unmake your essence. What will you do then? Be dead at him?”
“Osret, we’re decided,” said another. “No one cares what you think, so stop talking.”
“Death upon you,” said Osret, and I thought he would strike the other.
But he didn’t. The two of them glared at each other while the other three formed a silent, worried crowd. Then Osret looked away, and the rest spoke among themselves quietly.
One of them came forward. “Everyone. Osret, Zenjin–” he looked at the one Osret had cursed “–we have to live together. Can we all agree with that?”
No one agreed with that. Several muttered. Osret and Zenjin looked away.
“Now bless feasts,” said the one trying to still the conflicts.
Osret and Zenjin didn’t bless anyone’s feasts. Osret managed to look nauseated, annoyed, and tired at once, and Zenjin was looking at him like he’d just spotted someone he’d always hated and never been drunk enough to fight.
“Glad we’ve put that behind us. Now we–” He was looking at Osret when he sighed a deep, gurgling thing of bubbles in his throat. His entire attitude changed, and he turned back from the sandbar that separated us to fully addressing the others.
“Osret, it’s just us. You can stop performing. There’s no one here to see you. We’re cousins. Me, you–” he tapped his chest. “Nurim, Apseto. Zenjin–” he double-tapped the other on the chest too. “You’re wishing death on people! Osret, that’s not necessary! I understand, I’m with you, but we’re not trying to get you. We’re your family. Osret, it’s okay. Hesh, you with me?”
Osret wouldn’t look at him.
“Come on, hesh. Hesh, we go back from before we could walk. Before my Mom died, she used to tell stories of when you used to chew on me when we were crawlers. Come on. Please. I’m not fighting with you. I’m your cousin. I’m Aesthus. I’m a person, I’m family, not some enemy. Come on.”
And Osret still wouldn’t look at him, but he sighed.
“And Zenjin, you too. You had no reason to say that. It was disrespectful.” Aesthus held out an open hand, both warning and calming.
“Yeah, ye,” said Zenjin. He made an act of will. “Osret, I apologize I shouldn’t have said that.”
To Zenjin, Aesthus said, “Thank you.” And to Osret added, “See? We’re with you.”
Osret and Zenjin stood awkwardly for a moment, then shook hands like limp fish. But if they weren’t embracing like brothers, their shoulders held less tension, and their arms didn’t clench.
Aesthus continued. “We talked about this, and four of us agreed. But Osret, we’re not dismissing you. Yes, if things go right, making a mansion from the blade would be something, or giving it to the ghost. Yes, we could make a party house, and yes, if we didn’t have to pay rent, we could throw double bumps. I also heard you about giving the sword to the ghost. Feast and fortune, Osret, of course I want revenge. He killed my Mom!
“But she’s my Mom! And I think about her, the way she kept telling me to be smart and take care of myself. Mallens is mad. Not just angry, but mad with with fury. He threw Tollos into the sky! If he finds anything, anything about the sword, he’s not going to be calm. We’re not going to have a chance to argue our case. He’ll just start killing people.
“I’ll take the sword to him. I massage his feet. I know all of you hate it, so I’ll do it. I’ll tell him how wonderful he is and how loyal we are, and how everyone else is wrong and he’s right. I’ll give him the sword. And you’re right; he’s not going to reward us.
“But we’ll be made. And if we can talk him down, all of the other gods holding their breaths will remember. And if we plead–and I’ll plead, remember. You don’t have to say anything—he’ll take Tollos down from the heavens, and she’ll remember.
“You’re right, okay. If everything goes well, your ideas are better. But if anything goes wrong, we’re all going to die, and Mallens isn’t going to be calm or reasonable about it. But I’m pretty good talking to him, and I’ll massage his feet, get between the toes, and he’ll be okay. We win this way.
“But we have to stick together. We have to work together. You need to stick with us. Zenjin won’t say anything like that again, he apologized, and the rest of us will be a little more respectful. But if we, family, are fighting like this, Mallens is flipping plates. Come on, hesh. Stay with us.”
Osret made a noise like he’d eaten bad shrimp. He frowned at the sea and waves.
“Osret, agree with us,” said Aesthus. His voice was low but not soft. He insisted. “Let this be done.”
Osret looked away. The others watched.
After a moment, Osret tried to walk away, but Aesthus caught him and held him back. Another struggle of wills happened, and Osret obviously just wanted the others to drop it. But Aesthus wouldn’t, and while he didn’t contest with Osret, he didn’t look aside either. He stood peacefully demanding, and the other three cousins stood in a close circle around Osret. He wouldn’t be able to get away with shoving or fighting.
Aesthus repeated, “Agree with us. Let it be over.”
And Zenjin added, “I did apologize, hesh. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Finally Osret took Aesthus’s hand and shook it. “Fine.” He shook hands with the others, Zenjin again, and they were fast but tight handshakes. But it galled Osret, and I could see a deep banked fury in his eyes. It bordered on malice. His cousins must have seen it too or chose not to.
I felt like a pervert watching this conversation, so I looked down and away. The notion of running up on them and hard initiating to take the sword felt even worse. There didn’t seem to be any alternatives, but I stared around as if magic was hidding under a rock.
Instead I saw dark, quick figures like shadows slide through the shallow water. They moved without even rippling the surface, through water barely knee high. Nereids, fish spirits, the dryads of sea and surf, I thought.
All around me the wreckage of the beach rose in piles and towers. The nereids swam into the deep black water around the cousins’ sandbar and vanished. Nereids are usually peaceful, lazy, and they like to tease. But the shore had been ruined and disrupted by Mallens’s efforts, and the dryads had swum silently and fast.
They swam like predators, I thought. Suddenly I had something worse to worry about than Osret.