Ald jumped from the deck and into the shallow waters. He had said his farewells to the crew of the Menagerie, and even asked to see Fuldra. It was Nalaq who whispered “Wintertoll” when he asked, and he understood instantly. He waded to the bank before long, wanting to light a bonfire to dry himself.
“Farewell, Ald Elvisatcaught, Truthspeaker and Madman!” Said Ulgamos, arriving last and saluting his brother with a handkerchief. Ald gave him a crooked smile and waved. “May you return home a legend, boy.”
This shore was composed of irregular white clasts, gravel and sand sized. A bank that couldn’t be more different from the muddy ones of Felsia.
Ald felt round and flat forms bouncing on or slipping past his submerged ankles. When turning back, eh saw the Menagerie had already begun to part, the hands dragging the compound boat away with seeming laziness. There was no way back home for Ald anymore. Felsia was gone: whether that meant safely stashed away or lost forever, it seemed to depend on him and the powers that were.
He waded until his knees were out of the water, tempted to draw a weapon at every touch or rub that hid under the water’s surface. The tepid waters were a torture for his skin, that still felt Wintertoll’s touch. Every step was like walking into a meat grinder.
“Mother! Ease the pain!” Ald screamed to the heavens. His muscles felt feeble, not out of tiredness but out of the unconscious fear of movement pain conditions into one. Yet Wintertoll’s touch didn’t care about movement. It was a static pain, one that wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t move no matter what Ald did. Such was the nature of Wintertoll gifts. “Mother, pity your son who cries like he did when he was a baby.”
Ald stopped walking, slouched and began crawling to the shore. His body grew tired of the pain, and he wasn’t finding the will to go on anymore. Lassitude grew on him with each struggle to advance.
As he thought about giving up and letting his head fall into the water earning him the peace of death, a raven landed on his shoulder. “Pray to the correct deity, not to your forsaking mother. Pray to me and I will ease the pain, Ald.”
“Why? why should I pray to a Masterwork of all things?” he said, feeling as if bouts of electricity were coursing through his arms and legs.
“Am I not helping you save those you care about from a terrible fate? I have no need for Felsians. I don’t even have a need for their immortal souls. If and when all but one are gone, I will be there, mocking him. Telling the poor bastard to pray to me and not to their long dead gods. I needn’t your prayers, Ald, but you need my aid now. And unlike Mother, I freely offer it.”
“I came here trusting your word, and you let Wintertoll do this to em and take a sister of mine. If mother is bad, you are the same.”
The raven jumped into the water, and began swimming around Ald using its wings as fins. An insult to penguins. “The only ones who hear your pleas are me and the Worldvein, Ald. Mother is too worried for a Father that may not return to her. Even deities get depressed now and then."
Ald raised his head and seeking a footing and using hsis arms upon his knee to push his body upwards, came up to a standing position. “May… Father may return to mother. Father is not dead…” Despite the pain, Ald Laughed. “Felsians are not orphaned!”
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Unkindness thought that she would like to see him claim that same thing when their adventure concluded. Ald’s faith was not faltering for now, but Wintertoll was a kind Masterwork to the fair. The raven jumped out of the water and landed on Ald’s dirty red hair. “They could as well be. Father is a prisoner. Shackled by holy hair from Mother he lies restrained at the heart of a Masterwork sized after a mountain.”
“ And I will save him.”
“This is a rescue mission, yes. I cannot do it myself, I need a pureblooded Felsian to end this sorry pantomime. We Masterworks have immense power, each one in our particular way,” she made a pause, such that the raven tilted its head and then kept speaking, “I can talk to dogs, Ald. I can freeze the Worldvein from end to end. I can blot out the sun with birds woven out of tar and tears. But I cannot conclude this chapter of creation without help from one of my uncles or aunts.”
Ald felt the pain in his tongue and cheeks receding just before he answered. It seemed to be washing off of him like dirt and exhaustion during a warm shower. He looked at his arm and felt it alien. Devoid of something important, of something he had, in such few hours, accepted as a reality of being. Pain or bones, they had become the very same for him.
He hurried to wade upshore. He wanted to reach the white sand and rest upon it. And laugh. He wanted to laugh. He had renewed hope, he had a renewed body. “Thanks, Unkindness! Thanks!” he patted the raven on the back, and immediately pulling his hand apart. Caressing Unkindness felt like grabbing burning coal with his bare hands, yet it didn’t cause pain, just the impression of unbearable heat.
Coming out of the water, Ald knelt on the sand, noticing it was full of little spikes. That made it harsh to the touch. He grabbed a handful of grains to inspect them closely. “What are those, shells?” he muttered to himself, taking note of the sediment being dominated by four main shapes: two elongated, and two with multiple spikes, two longer than the rest, each. “I see no holes.” HE added, scratching his head.
The raven descended “There are heaps of those in Felsia, Ald. Since you arrived here, this shore has eight more.” It smiled with Felsian teeth and spider eyes. Ald averted the gaze before opening his eyes wide. He had seen those shapes somewhere else. Of course he had. Maybe in a book…
He threw the supposed sand back on the ground with shaking hands and rushed to a standing position. “Ear bones! Felsian ear bones!”
“I told you the Worldvein heard your prayers.”
“How many of my siblings died here! And why only ear bones!” Ald Demanded, taking the raven by the neck, as if he could do anything to Unkindness.
“Not enough. This beach is the result of the thousands of deaths of a single sessile misshapen who attained asexual reproduction. In its clones it lives forever, round ears rooted by branching nerves to the sediment, feeding on the organic tidbits that float on the river. Lilies of flesh with an ear for a calix.”
Ald stared wistfully at the horizon across the river. He wanted to go back, he wished to forget. To forget the masterworks, to forget this cursed beach. But that was not a choice. Not for Unkindness’ Miserable Chosen One.
He waded back into the waters and submerged a hand, grimacing as he found one of the loathly stems. The squirming nerve ends of it, like small tendrils creeped around his fingers. Being a farmer, Ald wasn’t precisely squeamish, but he would have preferred to submerge his hands on a mound of fresh manure. Once he had a firm grasp of the lily, he put all of his strength onto pulling, trying to pluck the damn thing from the river floor. Falling backwards into the muddy water’s he managed, revealing the pulsing being squirming in his hand. Unkindness description, while faithful to reality, had not made justice to the disgusting nature of the Aural lilies. They were viscous, the flesh translucent with decolored veins pulsing across the stem and into the ear-flower. The ridges of the ear were recognizably Felsian, but also exaggerated, deformed as if those of a caricature had manifested before Ald.
The Aural lily feared for its life, even when Ald let it go adrift in the Worldvein. Unable to scream, it only touched, taste and heard. And so it heard when ald spoke. “Our sins made flesh, across a river we dare not cross. You have brought me to hell, Unkindness.”
And it heard when the raven laughed and answered: “Only because its monarch has been captured.”
And then, floating under the evening sun, the little nightmarish flower got lost in the waters of the widest river in the world.