Surfacing Ch. 27

"Sirana! Bring her out!" I heard Gavin call from just outside. "We can't reach you from here!"

*Fuck...ffffuckk...*

I gathered Gaelan's body into my arms, wrappings and all, my ears being constantly stabbed by her screams. I couldn't stop her pain, I didn't know what to do; I could only hope it wouldn't be for nothing.

Gavin was outside with a mostly limp Graul in his arms, and I set Gaelan down on the familiar ledge. I could see the sunset to my right. The day was ending.

"Keep her here, don't let her slip away," the necromancer said as he set the drake beside her. His eyes were very much focused on her yet he was unaffected by her screams.

I could see what he meant, then, about her slipping away: the wispy holes in her body left areas where the wrappings sagged inward, and some of it crept up her neck and even dissolved part of her jaw. The deterioration was speeding up, as if she wanted to disappear.

What was I doing? Should we have just let her go? Why had Mourn carried her all this way in the first place? He had been about to kill her, I saw it, so why didn't he, if it only condemned her to this? Why didn't he kill her??

"Sirana, contain what you can unless you ready to give up," Gavin spoke hoarsely, "in which case I will speed the transition."

In that instant I saw the necromancer in Manalar's crypts again, felt his own joy at slamming a vicious fist into Vo'Traj's chest and drinking the soul of the Ma'ab sorceress who'd long tortured Ada through her still-beating heart.

That's what Gavin meant about "speeding the transition" for Gaelan; he'd put a hole in her chest. I knew then, without doubt, Gavin had absorbed further knowledge from Vo'Traj that way, the complex mix of memory and essence and ability, a small amount which related to his own mother. He had never told any of us, I hadn't known until the storyweaving.

And why not? He could learn much about Elves if Gaelan was just going to deteriorate and be lost anyway.

"Sirana, try harder, or I will—"

"No!" I barked. "You won't!"

Something invisible inside me sucked together and struck out.

Iethys's goshawk cried out a piercing warning then, and against my will I looked up. Above us she chased a black crow, trying to drive it away from us. The intruder was persistent, however, and capable of as many feats in the air as the bird of prey.

"Gavin?!"

"Don't...do that...again," he groaned, and I blinked and actually focused on how he was, right now.

From the way he held himself, he had been struck in the chest though I could see no bleeding damage. He had been shoved back from Gaelan and the drake, almost off the edge of the ledge...just as I'd willed it. He had caught himself, kept himself from falling off and out of sight, and was only just now working his way back. He was shaking like he was injured.

"Sh-shit, I'm sorry," I said, my fingers feeling numb in fright. "I need your help, Gavin."

His eyes flashed inhumanly at me before going black. "Then do what I told you... and keep your emotions in check!"

As if it was that easy. Her screams wouldn't stop; they wouldn't stop and they filled me up. I was still shaking. I started to cry.

The crow made immense racket as Iethys chased it and Graul anxiously watched Gavin, nudging him to try to recover from what I'd done. At the same time I placed my hands over some of the holes in Gaelan's body, as if I could apply enough pressure to stop bleeding. Or absorb and return the screams through my own mind. I didn't have more Words to use. I needed a different one now that the first one had worked.

*I don't know what to say!*

"Biyrk," Graul murmured, and his next breath rattled as if his air pouch was clogged. "Loerchik, l'gra."

*Biyrk. Biyrk, loerchik. Biyrk l'gra...*

Slow. Slow down. Slow pain. Slow fear.

I held Gaelan's body tightly, repeating the mantra, and her screams lessened to miserable moans as less of the blackened wisps escaped through my fingers. At the same time, Gavin reached out to tear at the wrappings, slowly exposing my Sister's naked flesh beneath. I could hear her heart beat reach a panicked, unstable patter, and Graul's began to sync with it as he rested his chin on Gaelan's bare shoulder, trembling.

The necromancer muttered something as he touched the moaning Drow, black-nail fingertips just digging into her chest like he meant to take her heart—as he had with Jacob, no, no!—as he also reached for Graul, who could not seem to help folding his wings close and tight, shrinking into a partial ball. Gavin stopped then and shook his head.

"No...this won't work," he gasped. "I dare not continue."

*What?!* I demanded.

*Biyrk l'gra, loerchik l'gra...*

"We can't stop—!"

Solid black eyes focused on me. "Sirana, you've blocked my method of choice."

"So...so use something else!"

*Biyrk loerchik l'gra...*

So easy to yell at him, so hard to think.

The birds both swooped over our heads, and I was caught repeating my mantra as Gavin had gone still, his eyes still black but now I couldn't tell if he actually saw me or not. He offered no further instructions or suggestions, just kept his pallid hands out and hovering over Gaelan's head and chest. Time itself seemed to slow down as the black wisps coming off of her partially exposed body curled like smoke pressing through a viscous syrup. What had happened? Had I done something? Had he? Did he need time to think of another way? How much time?

I was left alone trying to hold off what would happen next, willing Iethys to clear the sky before we tried to meld the two souls together. Both birds dove at same time for the ledge, seeming intent to crash themselves into it, but their talons and wings came out at the last moment...and both of them changed. Iethys became her Elven self, standing protectively between the black bird and us. The other became...

I wasn't sure. What landed was bipedal, female. Pale skin hidden by a cloak of black feathers. She had a sharp-featured face gilded by long, black, feathery hair. Her eyes were like the polished black of a real crow, and as the woman smiled at Iethys, I saw tiny triangular fangs. Her hands and feet remained covered in black, scaly skin, kind of like Mourn, including the talons.

Was she a Wilder? Her features were too mixed with an animal to be certain if she was Elven; I couldn't tell if she even retained ears.

"I am not here to spar with you, child," the Crow Woman said to Iethys, her voice a bit raspy and deep like a crow's call. "Two souls rest at the crossroads and they must be dealt with."

Iethys's eyes widened as if she recognized this creature but I was in no state to tell what she thought about it. I still repeated the words, trying to hold things together. I supposed all that really mattered was that the Guiding Sister slowly stepped to one side, allowing a narrow way for the Crow Woman to come closer. Those pools of darkness watched us with intent and purpose.

"Bold of you all, coming to this point. I am curious of the path this shall take."

As she got closer, Graul crawled forward and puffed up his wattle in warning, remaining between Gavin and the Crow Woman. She seemed amused by that display and kneeled before him, bowing her head.

"Greetings, Graul Ir'mrith Sjach."

His hazy, red eyes blinked and his rattle went quiet; now he was listening, and she continued.

"To answer this call severs the final threads of your bond to Moryxxyleth, you know this," she said. "The chill of the grave that the young Dragon's son has held back for so long will rush upon you. Your bones will crumble and your heart will struggle beneath the weight. You are aware of this."

"Yes," he said.

With another nod, she turned that dreadful gaze to me and my Sister. I couldn't move, and I dared not stop whispering my mantra, trying to keep my emotions in check...

A harsh chuckle croaked past those lips. "Gaelan Poly'nidara. The Red Sister whose soul has been scourged by the taint of Chaos. She struggles to even live and can barely register the passage of time. She will not remain as she is much longer, and either of you can hasten it, to set her free."

I didn't look away, but nor did I answer. It seemed more a statement, doubly so when the Crow Woman looked back at Graul. I dared a glance to Iethys, who stood unreadable, her chin up and her dusky arms crossed beneath her breasts.

"You would share her fate, little shadow?" the Crow Woman asked. "Neither of you has more than a handful of days left in your current states. The bond would only ensure that you shall plummet together."

"Is another way," Graul said. "Deathwalker said—"

"Your ends cannot be changed, that is a certainty," she cut him off with a wave of her talons, and Gavin did not move to debate with her. He did not move at all. "But. Ends can also be new beginnings. You will cease to be Graul, and she shall cease to be Gaelan. This, too, is certain. Is this what you wish, to give yourself up to the bond fully?"

"It is," the little drake stated without pause, puffing up his chest in clear challenge.

I was glad to hear that, even as I still could not understand why.

The Crown Woman nodded and looked to me. "Your sister is too weak to respond, but you know her mind and her heart well enough. Do you think she would want this as well?"

I swallowed, and the bird hybrid seemed to give me a stern look.

"Answer with certainty of her choice and not your own, lest she hold a grudge into this next life."

*Goddess...*

Did I know her mind and her heart that well? How could I presume to know what she would want? I didn't understand how I could feel tears welling up in my eyes in our current state, and yet I felt it.

I asked again why Mourn hadn't killed her. What had I seen in his mind that made him hesitate? I held her harder, closer, and begged for that memory I'd shared with him in Augran to come back.

*I'm ready to look at it now.*

Really look at it this time. Please.

"S-ssister," said the Drow poisoned by a Warpstone bite, as the half-blood mercenary laid the blade at her neck, adjusting the angle. "P-please, help..."

She had said something else. He didn't quite hear it the first time.

"Help?" he repeated.

Had he misheard? Had I misheard?

Her too-bright red eyes blinked, and she saw him. She was there; she sensed something about him...! "H-help...m-m'daughter..."

Then she was gone.

Daughter? What that what she said? Did she have reason to live, if there was anything to be done?

That was it. That was why Mourn had changed his mind. What he saw in Gaelan's face had reminded him of the Wilder, not of the Baenar. So he took her to them.

I frowned. But... Gaelan didn't have a daughter. She was a Red Sister; we didn't have children.

*Ha!*

The other side of me scoffed at me, at my self-absorbed assumption. Gaelan was only a Red Sister for the last seven years, five years before I was initiated. As I had told Gavin, I had known her for two of them, and she was half a century older than me. She would have had an easy hundred-forty years of life before she joined the Sisterhood, none of which I knew. I didn't even know where she came from in the City, not the way I knew about Jael, having watched her before her initiation and reading a profile or two.

*Make her choice, not my own.*

Slowly I breathed out, the fear in my chest dissipating like unwelcome smoke on a breeze. I didn't have to worry. Gaelan had made it already when she reached out to Mourn in those two seconds of coherence.

"Yes, this is what she wants," I answered.

The Crow Woman had only been waiting for that. She took up Graul by the scruff of his neck and before he could make a sound I heard a sickening snap and his body dissolved. A distant roar like thunder sounded at the same time that I glimpsed a serpentine strand, a bit black and a bit purple, cleanly cut. It whipped back from where the drake used to be and I followed it, watching it vanish over the clear horizon as the rumble dissipated in the absence of clouds. I looked back, in the hybrid's hand now rested a soul shard.

I was frozen as she kneeled swiftly beside me and Gaelan, pressing the Graul-shard to her lips.

"Swallow."

The sharp, obsidian edges slid past her lips and down her throat. Gaelan gasped in pain as the shard moved down and she shook in silent agony. The rate at which the wisps arose returned to "real time" and I got over my shock then.

"It's hurting her!"

The Crow Woman blocked me with a hand, keeping herself from being pushed back as Gavin had been, deflecting my psionic strike before I realized I'd done it.

"Life is often a painful experience."

She said no more as she moved back from me and looked across at Gavin, who finally blinked his void-like eyes and seemed to come out of another trance just in time. He saw the Crow Woman and tilted his head slightly in inquiry and curiosity. He looked down at Gaelan still shaking in my arms.

"She made a soul shard out of Graul," I blurted, again not knowing what to do next. "Gaelan swallowed it."

The Deathwalker smiled to reveal black teeth. "Good. What I would have done had you not struck me, Sirana."

I moaned as I could still hear Gaelan's moans. The wisps were still there, loose threads waving. "She's not healing..."

The Crow Woman had stood up by now beside Iethys, nodding to her. "You see it, yes?"

The Guiding Sister did not speak but nodded affirmative; her blood-red eyes so like her totem animal were wide as she stared at me. Gavin seemed to know what they were going on about.

"Like Deshi," he suggested to me. "Give her breath, give her a head start."

Belatedly I realized the warmth in my belly had flared again, as my unborn often did in response to many of Gavin's castings. Just like that time on the Greyland plains when Deshi clutched his throat unable to breathe, golden sparkles spilled from between my lips as I exhaled. I couldn't easily adjusted my grip, and I was too scared to let her go.

"Pinch her nose closed for me?" I asked Gavin, sort of another apology and peace offering.

One corner of Gavin's mouth quirked up and he shrugged, leaning to trap Gaelan's dark nose between his thin, pale fingers. My vision was blurry as I drew in deep, filling my lungs as I leaned in and pressed my lips to Gaelan, forming that tight seal and pushing air into her disintegrating chest.

At first most of the golden sparks passed back out through her, but the Crow Woman began to sing softly—strangely her singing voice was infinitely more melodious and lovely than her speaking voice—and Iethys joined in as if she knew the song by heart. The strength and encouragement was clear in the Wilder as she took a step closer.

Yet parts of the song were missing, I knew, as I could feel a thrum down in my gut; the power flowing from me seemed to fill the gaps. I had to keep breathing thought I kept my eyes open. Slowly I watched as more and more of the gold sparks were contained and did not leave my Sister; part of her even seemed to thrill at the movement of the air itself, and it reminded me of Graul's fluttering throat pouch.

I stopped breathing into my sister only after I felt the strong heartbeat against me, heard it unfailingly regular in my ears, and leaned up only after she breathed back into my face. She was warm though her eyes were still closed.

The song from the two shamanesses drew to an end, and the Crow Woman leaned in to whisper softly, "Death is always close little one. I was there when you were born and I am here when you are reborn. Quickly I am forgotten, but I am always there."

The Crow Woman dissolved in a shower of feathers and it honestly did not strike me that I knew her until I saw the look on Gavin's face, just for a moment unguarded. It was the closest thing I'd ever seen in his face to both a Man's desire and worshipful reverence before he covered it up.

*The Grave Mother...*

The chill came unbidden as we drew back from the cave I'd created. What had just happened? Did we just give birth to another Harrowed?

******

My body was freezing and so hungry when I collapsed onto the grass beside Gaelan, vaguely aware of Iethys giving a piercing call again. I forced my eyes open, trying to determine if there was another threat from the sky, but I only saw her spreading her wings to come off the stone to land, transforming into her Elf shape. She took two uncertain steps before she, too, fell.

"Sister!" Furuc boomed and finally passed willingly across the stream to get to her side.

Mourn and Jael were more sluggish crossing over though they did so without Nioah's help, who hovered nearby just in case. They all came close, encircling myself and Gaelan, Gavin and Graul's body. The wrappings around the still-unconscious Sister had dissolved at some point, gone into the ground from what I could tell of the dampness just beneath her. She wasn't awake but she was clearly breathing on her own.

"We...leave," Iethys said shakily, not nearly as well-spoken as when she used her magic to communicate. "Need sun and air, food and strength."

My stomach nearly collapsed in on itself at the next cramp, hearing that. *Food... Oh, fuck, yes, please!!* I tried to sit up but immediately felt dizzy and put my forehead back onto the grass to anchor it. *Fucking Miurag could stop spinning anytime.*

"I stand," Iethys assured Furuc, getting steady on her feet with his help. She breathed out, then nodded. "I walk. Carry one of them, brother."

I gingerly rolled over to see what happened next. Gavin wasn't accepting that possibility for himself; he forced himself up on his hands and got to his feet, saying nothing but glowering, just in case. I can see a familiar strain from the last time he taken mental and metaphysical backlash on my account. At least his nose wasn't bleeding this time.

"Jael?" Nioah asked, and she nodded as well.

"I'll make it," she said stubbornly.

Furuc shared a questioning look with Mourn, as without words they determined he didn't need the big bear to make it out, though the hybrid did stand slightly hunched as if he was wounded as well.

So it was me, Gaelan, and Graul who wouldn't be walking out. I knew better than to try to get up; I was so hungry and my head hurt to the point I would walk in circles within the mist before falling over and passing out. I was barely aware just lying still and only just able to reassure my spiders that it was safe to come back to me.

Furuc, Mourn, and Nioah passed a few hand signs and the storyweaver stepped to escort Iethys as the other two each bent to his task: Mourn lifted me and my spiders, Furuc took Gaelan. Each of them was exceedingly gentle, as if we might chip. I appreciated the slowness.

"Jael," Mourn murmured, his normally rich, bass voice deadened a bit. "Please take Graul."

My younger Sister pursed her mouth tighter—not in protest this time but in bafflement of what she was feeling—and went to carefully lift and cradle a limp Graul in her arms.

I allowed myself to be held, carried across the stream and out of the circle, my arms tightly crossed over my protesting middle. I made sure to keep my mouth shut as well so I wouldn't say something impatient or unthinkingly hurtful; I mostly kept my eyes fixed on Mourn's pronounced collarbones. I couldn't look him in the eye yet. I wanted food first but there was so much more waiting.

"Her heart is strong," Furuc commented quietly, a low rumble, after we had all passed out the stone ring and we paused so Iethys and Nioah could collect our clothing. "Will she wake, or has nothing changed?"

That was the first, unspoken fear all of us had, yes.

Gavin had donned his robe by then, the only one of us dressed, and chose that moment to clear his throat... though I don't think he had been anxious to be the first answer. He'd just been clearing his throat.