Adrin

It was well past noon when Adrin finally joined in a procession down from the palace to the sheltered beach beneath the cliff. He walked behind the royal family, in silent contemplation of the ordeal ahead of him. Representatives from the Assembly followed behind him, flanked by the elites of the royal guard in their sea-green embroidered tabards, and the Ethereal Guard in red soldier’s tunics.

The royal family was a small one. King Gerimon and his wife, Queen Irezan, led the way. Behind them walked the former queen Zafrys and the king and queen’s only daughter, Princess Jocyanë.

Before that day, Adrin had only seen her once or twice, and then only from a distance. She’d scarcely spoken a word to him when they were introduced, her face an unreadable mask. What must be going through her mind?

Adrin couldn’t dwell on the question. Right now he had other things to think about, like where to put his feet. Tradition dictated that a petitioner for the Ocean’s blessing approach barefoot, and his shoes and socks had been stowed away somewhere back in the palace, along with the satchel containing his abandoned life’s work. He did his best to step confidently, even when he trod on rough stones or into puddles that were deeper than he anticipated. It was difficult to get down the narrow stair carved into the face of the cliff and maintain any semblance of dignity until at last he stepped down onto soft sand.

The ceremony would take place on this beach, sheltered by a crescent-shaped limestone cliff. The tide was low and the Ocean eerily quiet, the surf nothing more than a whisper as it crept up the shore and back again. Adrin breathed in time with its rhythm. Each breath filled his lungs with the scent of salt and seaweed.

A crowd had gathered on the cliff above. It was always a spectacle when a petitioner entered the Ocean, but today the onlookers weren’t only curious about whether the boy on the sand would be their next king. They were here to see if there would be another tragedy. No wonder the sea of humanity flowing from the city continued to swell. Adrin turned his back on them.

The king met his eyes, and Adrin nodded in reply to his implied question; he was as ready as he was ever going to be. Gerimon took his first step into the water and the murmuring crowd went silent, waiting as he waded out until he was submerged to the waist. Then he turned back to face the land.

“Adrin Remyer,” he declared, his voice carrying clearly over the water. “Will you seek the blessing of the Ocean, accept her judgment, and fulfill the obligation she places upon you?”

Adrin stepped forward over the line of debris that marked the extent of the last high tide.

“I will.”

“Then go forth, and ask the Ocean for her breath.”

Never in his life had Adrin been so conscious of the mere act of walking. A thousand pairs of eyes were upon him, watching him put one foot in front of the other. He closed his eyes as the first cold wave rushed over his toes, sand and pebbles giving way softly beneath his feet. Each time the surf retreated from the shore, it seemed to draw him outward, pulling him along, just as it had in his dream. He opened his eyes to take one last look at the king, who met his gaze without another word.

Each step was harder than the last. Adrin passed the king and continued on towards the open Ocean, where waves crested and crashed in the distance. At last he could walk no further. He was soaked to the chest, now, but numb, so that he no longer felt the cold. He drew in a deep breath and dived.

The water closed over him, bringing with it a shock of terror.

Adrin knew well enough how to swim, couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t known. But he also knew, with a deep, instinctual certainty, that he could not breathe underwater. He could make himself let out his breath slowly, but when he tried to inhale, his body refused.

What was he doing? Diving into the Ocean because of a dream? Surely he was an idiot who deserved his fate. The last fool to try had never returned to the surface, either. Doubt and panic screamed at him—Give up! Get out. Don’t drown. He wrestled with his fear until he had no more energy left to fight; nothing else mattered but his desperate need to inhale.

Water, or air?

Adrin made his choice, and breathed it in.

The sea flooded his chest, and a presence flowed into his mind. She was vast and ancient, but familiar, the same specter who had whispered to him in a dream now amplified a thousandfold. She searched him, reaching deep into every aspect of who he was, seeing things even he hadn’t known about himself, unfolding him until he was back once more in his earliest memory.

He was three or four years old, stacking blocks on the floor of the watchstation while his mother monitored the readouts. Restless and bored, he slipped out the door and across the field to where an enormous, perfect circle of black glass cut a sharp contrast through the brush. He walked around it slowly, following the lines incised on its surface and wondering what they meant.

Defying his fear, Adrin poked his toe over the boundary where dirt met glass. Nothing happened. He jumped on, then off again. Nothing. He tried to run across and slipped, his rear end collided hard with the glass, and he began to cry.

His mother rushed out the door of the watchstation and down to where he still sat, but she hesitated for a moment at the edge of the obsidian circle, steeling herself before she came to retrieve him. She scooped him up and scolded him fiercely, carried him back inside, and admonished him to stay put.

He hadn’t known then that he’d been playing on the seal that confined a creature that had laid ruin to Dhanlir only a few years earlier. He knew it now. But there was still so much that he didn’t know, and now, at last, he might be able to get some answers.

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“Why?” he tried to ask, but the waves shushed him, lulled him back to complacency. He was the little boy again, and he’d dozed off on the floor. Now his mother was carrying him to bed, trying not to wake him, but he did wake up, just a little bit. Just enough to know that he was safe, and warm, and everything would be taken care of.

Only he wasn’t in his mother’s arms, He was cradled by currents, gentle now after they had laid bare his very soul.

“You will do, Adrin Remyer.”

He didn’t hear her voice with his ears, but he felt her meaning on the Current, much like when he used it to understand someone speaking another language. Only when he attuned the Current on land, it didn’t resonate in his bones the way the Ocean’s voice did. Adrin surrendered to her, and she sustained him, and he could breathe the water as if it were air.

He wasn’t sure how far he traveled, descending into depths beyond the reach of sunlight. There was nothing to see until a green glow ahead cut through the darkness, growing brighter as he approached, illuminating the shapes of a reef.

The Ocean released him from the flow and Adrin floated upright, turning in a slow circle to get a better look at his surroundings. He quickly realized that the shapes he had first assumed were the creations of nature were, in fact, buildings, smoothed at the edges and mottled by life that had put down roots in their crumbling walls. Everything was washed in eerie light, and here and there bright points winked at him like glittering stars.

“This is Vas, isn’t it?” Adrin asked.

“Yes.”

Vas had once been the greatest city in Elorhe, home to the legendary house of learning where great discoveries had been unveiled . . . and dangerous secrets had been concealed. Now, all that remained were these ruins at the bottom of the sea, colonized by corals and sea creatures, but devoid of human life. A few artifacts remained on the surface, preserved at the University near Thaliron. Some even still called it the New University, more than four hundred years after the fall of its predecessor.

Adrin’s steps were slow and awkward, but he was standing on what once had been a street, and it felt more natural to walk than to swim, even if the city was like none he’d ever seen. Vivid red corals spread like ivy across sloping walls. Feathery fronds extended out of crevices, then retreated if he drew too close. A school of small, silvery fish parted to swim around him, brushing against him as they darted past. An enormous, many-armed creature peered out at him from beneath a crumpled wall. The city belonged to them, now, and Adrin was merely an awkward interloper in their domain.

What had the city been like in its heyday? Adrin could almost see it. The tiny lights that constantly twinkled at the edges of his vision sometimes bloomed into something more. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a sunlit garden, but when he tried to turn and focus, the memories eluded him, becoming nothing but sparkling glimmers again. Adrin yearned to see more. So little remained of Bhadrat and Vas after the Victorless War that the two great powers seemed more like legends than real places, where real people had lived and breathed.

“What happened here?” Adrin asked.

To his right the glimmers brightened and multiplied, flashing wildly until they were so dazzling all that Adrin could see was light. When he blinked away the momentary blindness, he was standing on a broad, smoothly-paved road. The sun was high overhead. What had been the vague suggestion of a wall beneath layers of coral was now a white stone building with bright red trim. Through a large, arched doorway, Adrin could see a courtyard where ivy climbed up trellises set against the walls, flowers bloomed in large cylindrical planters, and a group of about twenty children sat on the grass in the center.

“Go ahead,” the Ocean said, only this time, she wasn’t just a disembodied presence resonating through him. She was standing beside him, dressed in an odd, loosely draped gown of yellow pleated fabric. He guessed she was in her thirties, with her black hair pinned up in an assembly of waves, a long neck and a round chin. And when she turned to look at him, Adrin could see that her eyes were a deep, dark red.

“You’re—”

“My name was Brizin,” the woman replied. “This was my home.”

She stepped aside to allow Adrin through the archway first, but when he stepped off the road onto the grass, he felt no difference in the ground beneath his feet. His sense of smell also seemed to be inaccessible. Only his sight and his hearing were engaged by this vision.

The children were gathered around a teacher, an older man wearing a garment of pleated fabric. He spoke a language that Adrin had never heard before, but the Current carried his meaning to Adrin’s ears.

“Never stop wondering about the world in which you live. Never stop asking questions, and don’t let yourself be satisfied with easy answers. You will discover that for every answer you find, ten new questions will present themselves, and if you answer those more new questions will arise. Keep going! Each question you pursue will carry you to a deeper level of understanding. Let your curiosity be your guide, and take joy in learning all that you can. The pursuit of wisdom is our highest calling, and each new discovery you make will enrich all of humanity, because the trove of knowledge we share is the birthright of every human being.”

“That’s beautiful,” Adrin said. A city that named learning its highest virtue? No wonder it seemed like such a paradise.

“It was,” Brizin said. “Our ideals soared above the highest clouds. So noble, so virtuous, that we would do anything to protect them . . . even betray all that we stood for.”

The teacher dismissed his class, and one student got to her feet more slowly than the others. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen, but there was no mistaking the fact that she was with child herself, and soon to give birth.

“We were losing the war,” the girl said, but she spoke with Brizin’s voice, and looked up at Adrin with the same deep red eyes. The older Brizin was gone, and her younger self had taken her place. “We were desperate to survive. Vas’s only hope was the Rispara, but there weren’t enough of us.”

“So they decided to breed more,” Adrin said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. How could the same people who placed such a high value on learning use a child as an incubator for their humanoid weapons?

“In our desperation, we made compromises.” She responded now to thoughts he hadn’t spoken aloud. “We believed we had no other choice. Even I . . . was proud to do my part.”

The vision of a sunlit city faded and Adrin returned to the present, floating once more in the ruin at the bottom of the Ocean.

“I wanted you to see us at our best and our worst,” the Ocean told him. “You must understand, even more than the others—but there is so little time.” A current of water prodded him forward, propelling him over a ridge that might have been a fallen pillar in the old city.

“What were the Rispara?” Adrin asked.

“People.” Even though Brizin was no longer manifest before him, her presence was all around him, and her voice whispered inside his head. “We were, and are, always human.”

“Are?” Adrin repeated. There weren’t any Rispara left. They had been monstrous creations of Vas, invented to battle against the constructs of Bhadrat. But unlike the constructs, the Rispara could be killed. They had been killed, wiped off the face of the world, and good riddance—or so he thought.

“We are human, Adrin.” Brizin’s voice was gentle, trying to soothe the fear that rose inside him. “It is both our greatest weakness and our greatest strength. We lived and loved and died, as all humans do. But we were given powers that humans were not meant to bear.”

Brizin and Adrin in the Ocean [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/571846492780757003/1132317682277040219/Brizin.jpg]