Surfacing Ch. 39

~Oh, fucking Goddess...~ I groaned in my head. ~Shyntre—~

Yet at the same time, I kept my mouth shut in the frigid air. It was good knowing in advance males could work things out between themselves. I'd seen it before. It only remained to be seen how irritated the hybrid could be with me later for sharing that tidbit. I didn't like how Shyntre had used it, though, so...live and learn.

Mourn chuckled, although it wasn't a relaxed one as he was still showing us his back. "Perhaps it does. Perhaps we will have to wait until you visit the red sands in the flesh to know that answer. If there's been no direct contact, your Valsharess would be far from the first to name a child after a powerful figure she's never met."

"Hah, how many names does Mazdek have?" Shyntre continued to prod. "How common is this one?"

"Was. I am not sure many even know he is there anymore."

"You didn't answer my question, Morix."

"I do not know the answer, Shyntre. Mazdek has had many titles in his time, the same as any Guardian."

"Have you met him?" Shyntre asked bluntly. "And is he red like the sands or another color?"

"You're leading, Priest," the hybrid chided. "Say what you're thinking."

"You first, Guardian-Son. You've had a lot more time to think but you don't talk much."

"Uh, can we stop badgering our guide, please?" Jael said with a sure glare in Shyntre's direction.

"How many of you are breaking into a sweat right now?" Gaelan chastised, against shifting Natia's bundled-up weight.

"Not me," I volunteered right before jerking with a grunt, then breathing out slowly.

"You alright?"

"Yeah. Ionne felt the need to start throwing his heels as fast as his sires are throwing words. I think he's trying to catch up with them."

That got them quiet in a hurry, rather to my satisfaction, and I heard Gaelan's chuckle along with Tamuril's exhale of relief as the two strongest males around her backed off each other. I was beginning to realize how often she had protested something I had said, but she hadn't once protested anything Mourn or Shyntre had said until now, and even then she wasn't debating.

"We should save further discussion for later," the Druid said then, almost pleading with us. "Conserve breath and walk as far as we can."

"Why?" Shyntre asked her, not quite antagonistic, but close.

"Another snow storm is coming."

"What?" the sorcerer said in disbelief. "The wind is almost still!"

"Shuiblith," Mourn hissed, turning to himself around to taste the air and probably scan the horizon. "From which direction? How far?"

"North and West. It was moving quickly and I thought it would miss, but it turned our way. Now it will strike in the day. Middle morning."

"How does she know all that?" Jael asked curiously, but not as if she was doubting the intelligence.

"My familiar and I can feel these storms," Tamuril said earnestly. "We know how."

"Alright, if you say. Strange, but good enough for me."

"Reaching appropriate shelter will require us to walk past Sunrise," Mourn said. "I am sorry, but we cannot be caught out in another storm. This will grow very uncomfortable."

"Not nearly as uncomfortable as courting ice crystals in our blood," Shyntre grumbled. "Lead the way."

********

"So where is Pilla?" I risked asking after we'd been quiet and traveling at a good, controlled clip for more than an hour. The wind was just starting to give the impression of being pushed South and East by something right behind it...

"Not far," Tamuril answered vaguely. "Sheltered. She will catch up when it is light again."

"She hates flying in the dark, right?" Jael said. "This have anything to do with the fact that she can see Morix's piss from cloud-level in the afternoon?"

Tamuril made an odd, incredulous noise, maybe at the crudeness—which Jael was always prone to do around her for that exact reason—but she pushed it off with a quiet laugh. "Well. Yes. Falcons must have more light to see than an owl. Moonlight is enough in times of need such as at Manalar, but to add this cold...I do not want to tire her overmuch."

"And how do you fare?" I asked.

"I have learned to see in the dark," she admitted. "I should have much earlier but...there was a..."

"Stigma?" Mourn asked.

"Yes. The Dark Ones mastered that magic well enough for it to become permanent in their exile. It was hereditary...they were twisted from their natural form, creatures of the Abyssal Darkness for all time... The Elves of the Light did not use it casually lest we follow their path."

"It's just a tool if you always live on the Surface," I said.

"I know now," she murmured, sounding regretful and confused. "Had I tried using this tool when going belowground for what I needed...I...I don't know, perhaps—"

"You went underground?" Shyntre asked. "Why?"

Oh, Hells.

"Not now," I said. "Let's keep moving."

He heard my tone—and Tamuril's heartbeat—and dropped it.

Later when the Sun began to rise, and at the same time thick, grey clouds blanketed the Sky, when the wind began to bite harder than it had been and flecks of dusty snow hissed and shushed around us like sand, we could afford no talk at all. Despite the overcast, the brightness above enhanced by the reflective Surface below seeped through our blindfolds despite assistance to adjust and secure them, and the very experience of the open air changed from night to morning, as if the Sun's rays had a foreign taste.

The two with no Surface experience whatsoever—who must feel they are drifting lost in a place like the featureless Greylands, for all they knew of what was around them this moment—struggled frequently with moments of panic. They both threatened to sweat from sheer anxiety, and though Auslan controlled his breathing, clutching to Shyntre's hand to accept his strength and his reassurance, Natia was whimpering constantly like a wounded animal no matter what Gaelan said. It was getting louder as the wind grew stronger.

"Sirana," Mourn suggested without giving me an open order.

I could give it a try.

~Hey. Hey...~ I soothed, connecting both Gaelan and Natia together so the child could feel our confidence. ~Calm. Calm down. We're almost to shelter.~

~Shh, baby,~ Gaelan added. ~Easy. We're here—~

It didn't work.

~It's coming for us!~ the girl cried. ~It's coming! Help! Help, please! Make it go away!~

The Unknown was enormous in her mind; larger than the entire world, and the terror of the void without boundaries was enough to make anyone freeze in place. I got it; Natia was in a nightmare and she couldn't wake up. She would hyperventilate, or start screaming and be unable to stop. Both responses clashed so hard inside her small body she started kicking her Mother's back for no ill reason, jerking and flopping so awkwardly Gaelan lost her grip and Natia fell into the snow, sinking far down into it.

Then she *really* began screaming.

Her thrashing swiftly made it worse as the snow gave way beneath Gaelan's and my feet. This broke the delicate balance of Tami's spell and we stumbled like we were in quicksand. I clutched blindly at the edge of the snow drift where it broke, but it only continued to shatter beneath my hands. Before I knew it, the snow was trapping me on all sides up to my hips and belly, and I couldn't free my legs as there was no ground underneath to push against. The snow continued to shift around me but I didn't know what would happen. I couldn't see and I didn't know this land the way Tamuril did.

"Xsio wer drasonameko!" Mourn growled, spinning around to move to the end of the line. It sounded like his patience had finally snapped as he barked, "Tamuril, be ready! Aid them to stand again!"

"Wait, Morix, let us—" Jael began.

"I can h—" Shyntre started.

"KAGN SVERN!"

Roughly, Mourn's Words pulled Gaelan and me up as if we were both children gripped by impatient tutors by the back of our collars. We were hauled quickly out of the snow trap and Tamuril was indeed ready, chanting her own Druid's song to give us back our weightlessness atop the snow.

"Natia!" Gaelan cried as her Daughter continued to shriek somewhere low and behind her. "Natia?"

"I have her," Mourn said, and by the crush and churning snow, I imagined he had simply grabbed hold of her physically and pulled her out of the drift like a fish out of a stream. "Be silent, Baenar'vrak!"

"Morix!" Natia gulped, wailing as she still struggled. "Morix, Morix!"

"Do not force her to sleep, please!" Tamuril warned, perhaps based on some signal she saw that I couldn't.

"She's already wet!" he snarled back. "I must take her ahead to shelter. Odad, you track me. Lead the others to the shelter to find Natia, then to the gate after the storm passes."

"Odad?" she murmured. "I-I am not worthy—"

"Just lead them, Noldor!"

"Morix—?"

"Jael, keep them safe. Keep them all safe!"

~Mourn, calm down, this isn't the worst that could happen—~

~Sirana, I am on the cusp. No more! I have moments, at best!~

The finality and certainty of his thought silenced me. Before I knew it, our To'vah-krav had run off with my weeping niece tossed over one shoulder, moving faster than I'd known he could on two legs over the top of snow drifts.

*******

*Temep ossalur ui ekess ossalur loaw...*

Mourn had finally reached this transition he'd dreaded. It was like a slow death this time, not the abrupt claiming of his consciousness it had been many times before. Some Humans spent months wasting away as they fought a sickening illness every step of the way, wanting each moment alive, every draw of breath, despite the pain of those moments.

He felt like that. He felt he was Dying, now that an innocently healing bond no longer held back his Sleep. He was afraid, and he wanted to return to take Sirana in the snow beneath some trees, to urge her prevent this, it was too soon...!

But, in fact, it was already far too late, and he had brought this on himself.

As Natia cried at something large and unseen charging at them, unstoppable and massive as the entire Surface she could not see, he might have thought the child could somehow sense the Ley Lines themselves as he drew on them now to push himself hard in these last moments. He was fully aware he was inviting the enormous backlash which had been waiting all this time to be unleashed.

He resisted the powerful urge to open his wings fly to the Guild's gate, to get Natia warm and dry and into Krithannia's arms as soon as possible. Tamuril couldn't track him if he flew, and the landing could not be assured to be a safe one for the child. Just as well, as it had begun snowing heavy once again and he would not be able to see through the rising storm once it fully engulfed them anyway.

Mourn scored tree trunks with his claws and broke branches using his broad shoulders at frequent intervals as he skimmed the side of the ravine, leaving markers which way he'd gone for the Druid's sharp eyes to follow. His tracks would be obvious only for the next hour or so, then they would be gone, swept aside like dirt from a doorstep.

By then he will have since fallen to Sleep. At last.

Mourn and Natia reached the shelter he'd intended for their next wait through a daytime storm, where they would continue on at night. He tucked her up deep as he could inside the cave with her still fighting her fear, fighting him, and he placed his palm on her forehead and rumbled to her so deeply, her ears could not actually hear it.

*V'dri, Baenar'vrak. Wurunwa vur morne. Bafoidrih sva xtirl di dask.*

The bundled child, whose eyes he couldn't even see, went still. She was quiet on the cave floor, and she would not leave before her Mother found her. She had some time before the chill would begin to seep in as her core flared with Dragon's Heat, as her breath came in quick, hot huffs like a panting dog, as her heart pounded hard as she slept. She would be ravenous upon waking because this spell would use reserves of strength that... perhaps the slight girl did not have to spare.

But it was the best he could do. He regretted that it wasn't better.

The Dragonblood shifted to four legs then, for the first time this entire trip. His bones burned as though the lava of the Underdark coated them, disintegrating them before his magic willed them to reform. He roared and spat as his spine broke and reconnected, curving into a spring just waiting to be released as his neck and jaw changed orientation. His large, clawed hands morphed into wicked paws to dig into the stone and the soil of the cave, and his tail lashed as it changed his sense of balance and direction.

Shrieking as his wings flapped in pure reaction to the brutal alterations, scraping the walls of the cave and the only trait which hadn't changed in some way, Mourn allowed himself to drool and snort, fluid dripping from his nose and mouth. He used it to draw a fresh boundary around Gaelan's Daughter which would dissuade any but his Daratrix and his allies to get near her.

Next Mourn sprinted out of the cave, mostly blind but all his other senses hypersensitive, exposed in this raw state, as he tried to outrun his fury and injury and desperation. More bark was ripped from trees, more branches broken, more naked, low growth crushed beneath him as his tongue darted out constantly into the hurling frost.

He could taste the scent of Dwarven magic within precious stone and metal, leading him to the gate without his eyes. Try as it might, not even the howling wind could change the nature of a To'vah's ability to detect the clear scents of Miurag's body, formed by the raw forces of the Dark Sister and now blended with those parts forged and refined by the Tundar in Her Name.

He was almost there. He was at the base of the correct mountain.

*Sleep...*

Mourn charged forward, started climbing.

*Sleep!...*

Ice cracking. Rocks slipping and tumbling down.

*Stop Fighting!*

Farther. Almost...

*SLEEP.*

The rush came upon him, drowned him with the power of the oceans. A hundred thousand hands of shadow and light, of space and mass, of every conceivable element grabbed him, dug in deep...

And pulled Morixxyleth down.

********

She had stopped abruptly as we hurried... then she had fallen to her knees without a sound. She was still breathing—panting, really—and holding herself up, fortunately, but she couldn't speak. I was afraid I already knew what that meant as I kneeled beside her, touching her.

~Come on, Jael, up. Stand up!~

The definitions of Tamuril's snow-walking spell seemed confused as well. Jael remained on top of the snow as it had been a moment ago, but with the constant, innumerable addition of more snowflakes, it felt to me as though the level was climbing her thighs already. The storm would try to bury her eventually, Druid magic or not.

"He's...!" she gasped.

~Up,~ I demanded. ~Stand up, Jael. Hear me. We have to keep moving.~

I felt her hand grip my wrist tightly then, and she breathed out once, heavily. "Right. One...two...?"

~Three.~

I braced myself and helped her to her feet.

"He's Asleep," Shyntre said aloud over the wind, speaking what we all knew.

"Y-yes," Jael answered, not as loud. She still sounded as thought she'd taken a rock fist to the nose so hard she forgot her name.

"Did he make it to the gate?"

"Uhm...I don't know? I just...I just lost him..."

~Lost him? What does that mean, Jael?~

"He's just gone!" she insisted, sounding bereft.

"If he's 'gone,' where is Natia?" Gaelan demanded but before Jael could answer, the Druid startled every one of us.

"Follow me NOW!" Tamuril shouted. She sounded both angry and afraid. "Whatever spells Mourn put on your clothing will begin to wear off now he is not conscious or in proximity to maintain them! You do not have time for this! Move!"

Auslan tugged Shyntre forward with him, approaching her; I could barely hear his voice over the storm.

"Lead us, Tamuril. We are blind. Are...lost without you."

Somehow having only one sighted Elf now, after working so well with two—and with the cold of the storm finally forcing enough heat loss in my hands and feet to feel true pain—I pulled Jael along with me as well, urging Gaelan to follow. I reached out to the Druid with my mind.

~Tamuril. Let me see through your eyes? I want to understand where we are.~

~Of course, Sirana,~ she answered, trusting and compassionate. ~Go ahead. Look.~

It was so easy; I'd forgotten how adept Tamuril was working with any psion, how familiar the feeling was for her. While I had a better handle on what I was doing and didn't feel nearly so clumsy, it still felt as though she was guiding me into place, drawing me in rather than passively waiting for me to enter.

Our minds linked firm and sure, and in an instant...I could see better than I ever had on the Surface before. Perhaps better than I had in my life.

Even with the weather as it was, the lines of the snow-covered trees were crisp behind the scattering flakes. Each snow drift was easy to make out, not only in motion but in depth perception; I felt I could have told the others exactly how many paces left to reach each one. There was no headache—something of which I was quite envious—and the distance out to where everything was clear to me, adding the subtle shades of colors I hadn't even known could be there when all the trees were bare, the ground was white, and the flowers awaiting spring...

It was...stunning.

~You have very far sight, Druid...~ I thought in awe. ~And you see in more colors than I ever knew existed. It's...wow, Tami.~

She chuckled softly, able to feel the complex impression beyond mere words. ~Thank you. Part of it comes from Pilla.~

~Who probably has to hunker down for longer before joining us.~

~Yes. But she will be alright, Sirana. It is for you all I am worried.~

She looked at my companions then, and I saw them—and myself—from her taller height. There were no faces at all to make out—she could tell me first from my belly, for example—and all she had to go on was general body language.

To her, we all looked about to collapse in the storm. Auslan and Shyntre were supporting each other but clearly feeling the cold much more now without Mourn. I was supporting Jael, who could only focus on putting one foot before the other for the moment, though she seemed to be working through it. Gaelan was bringing up the rear but shaking with nerves, acting as though she might remove her blind to spy a shadow—any shadow—to jump farther forward, reuniting faster with her Daughter.

Except Tamuril had to track her down for us first, and that fact was the only thing holding Gaelan back.

~I don't think I realized how much grey is in our clothing,~ I commented, trying to keep both myself and the Druid the calmest ones here, if nothing else. ~I always thought they were black.~

~Where night and shadows are concerned, they are,~ Tamuril replied easily, purely comfortable with the psionic communication. ~The uneven dapple effect works exceedingly well in forest as well, you know this. You stand still long enough and most creatures who do not see with life-heat eyes will no longer make out your outline.~

~Huh. Hey, what's that?~

She was focusing on a mark on a tree I wouldn't have seen until I was at least a hundred paces closer. It was amazing.

She thought, ~It is the first sign we should change our direction.~

"Found it, Gaelan!" I said aloud, patting Jael's rump at the same time. Both my Sisters made their own particular grunting noise to say they were listening. "Mourn's trail. Clear as a garden-web. Tami's got this."

~You do not need to praise me to them,~ Tamuril protested privately.

~They need to hear someone talking normally. Me or you, or both. We can't sign or sense anything between us, we are isolated except for touch. We need confidence.~