Tempest (31 page)

The water was a little better here, saltier—they had to be getting close to the sea. Or maybe it was just the thought of losing Nichol that spurred Colm to greater efforts, able to ignore the burn of fatigue in his body, the pain of overusing muscles that had gone so long without use. Colm swam after the nimh-fish and reached it just as it contorted to bash its head against the floating grass.

Colm grabbed it by the scaly tail and
pulled
, hard, taking much of the force out of the fish's blow. Still, enough of it hit the tussock that it rocked dangerously, spilling Nichol's lower half into the water before he was able to scramble back onto it. “Colm!” he screamed, and the fear and anguish in his voice lent Colm a fury he didn't know he possessed. Forced from one element to another, driven out of one home and then stolen from the new, pitiful life he'd made for himself, and now, so close to saving Nichol, they were to be thwarted? No. It was impossible. Colm was speed and rage and
death
, and this creature simply didn't know it yet.

Colm screeched, the sound carrying through the gloom and making the nimh-fish impulsively curl in on itself. He ripped a handful of spines out of the top of his head and crawled up the creature's body, trying desperately to pierce its skin with them. It was too tough, though, too leathery. The spines bent and broke against its skin, piercing Colm's hands a few times as he pushed too hard, too desperately. He went for the nimh-fish's eyes but by then it had figured him out, stopped trying to get a handle on him and began to roll, sinking down to the bottom of the swamp and rubbing both of them through the silty mud in an effort to throw Colm off.

The silt made it impossible to breathe, filthy on his gills and in his mouth. Colm couldn't let go yet, though—the nimh-fish would simply follow him up to the surface and go after Nichol again. He needed something, anything that would distract it long enough to—

He had something. Something he'd forgotten about, something that cut at the skin binding it to Colm's body even now. He reached down to the flap at the base of his tail and grabbed the knife, pitted with rust now but still stronger than anything else in the water with them. He groped for the back of the nimh-fish's head, seeking the spiny ridges above its eyes—there. The thick lids were protectively shut, but it didn't matter. The knife was sharp enough to go straight through into the bulging black orb beneath, and when it did, the nimh-fish's thrashes turned from deliberate to reactionary, and even more violent.

Colm left the knife where it was and pushed away, his vision darkening. He felt light-headed, cast adrift like a bloated moon disc. He had to move, though, he was still too close to the nimh-fish for safety, and he had to get to Nichol. The tang of his blood still lingered in the water, even obscured as it was by the great predator's ichor. Colm slowly swam up near the surface of the water, reaching for the light of the sun—it was out now, visible, and he could see the outline of Nichol's head, dark curls…soft curls… Colm reached for them.

A warm hand closed around his wrist and brought him the rest of the way up. Being in the air didn't help his breathing, but Nichol's swift hands against his neck did, clearing away the embedded muck before he unceremoniously dunked Colm's head underwater again. A few deep inhalations and his vision cleared, and Colm reached out and grabbed the hummock's dangling roots and began to tug at the little island, laboriously towing it toward shore. Once Nichol was safe, then things would be all right. Colm could duck and dodge his way around the pouncing, jagged teeth of the nimh-fish until it tired and gave up.

But shore felt so far away, and he could feel the tremors in the water smoothing out a bit as the predator got a handle on its pain. It moved in a twisting side-to-side pattern, coming his way, its vision failing it but its sense of smell still perfectly able to detect where its bleeding prey was. Colm glanced up and looked ahead. He could see what he thought was the shore, plants lifting out of the water and growing tall, but there were little channels like that all over the place, and he had to be sure. Just a bit farther now, just a dozen more meters…

They wouldn't make it. Colm dropped the roots and prepared to distract the nimh-fish again, darting to the side and reaching out with his hand to scrape along the beast's side as it went by. He scored it, digging in and prying a few scales free, but the nimh-fish ignored him completely, focused now on its prize. It dove forward until it was directly under the hummock, then smashed its great head up into the base of it, thrashing from side to side and tearing roots and grass apart. The little island broke into pieces, and in the frenzy, Nichol was dislodged from it and fell, with a scream of fear, into the water.

Panic flooded Colm's veins. There was no time now for distraction, there was only time to try and get between Nichol and the nimh-fish. He swam around it and got to Nichol first, wrapping him carefully in his arms and racing for the shore. The nimh-fish, which had been nosing around the dregs of the island, felt them go and immediately gave chase. It surged forward and forced Colm to jerk to the side, so slow now, weighed down with his precious cargo. He moved forward in bursts, barely dodging each successive strike but getting closer and closer to the shore. He could feel it now, solid and heartening, a sound place for Nichol, who gasped for breath whenever they briefly surfaced. So close. Colm swished his tale to the right, the left, evading strikes and moving forward all at once, and they were close enough now that he could see the rising ground, close enough that Nichol might be able to stand—

A thousand needles sank into the very end of his tail, shearing off the very tip of one of Colm's two back fins. He keened, shrill and shrieking with pain, and barely heard Nichol's yells over his own agony. He tried to pull away but couldn't. His tail wasn't working anymore, quivering out of control. He felt the nimh-fish move closer as it sought out a tastier morsel. Colm wanted to tell Nichol to go, wanted to push him away, but he didn't even have the strength for that, and now they would die here in the shallows together because of his failure.

Nichol pulled Colm over until his back faced the creature, which nosed in and then backed out in a hurry. The spines, yes, it didn't like those, but they didn't really hurt it either. It came in again, a bit slower, more cautiously, and this time—

Nichol lunged one arm over the rounded point of Colm's shoulder and grabbed the hilt of the knife, which still protruded from the nimh-fish's eye. He jerked it free, and fresh ichor stained the water as the wound oozed anew. The nimh-fish began to thrash again, newly traumatized, and Colm felt Nichol heave on his body, dragging him through the water until reeds tickled his sides and his head lay partially exposed where it rested on the muddy ground. Land. Nichol had pulled them to land.

The nimh-fish seemed to give them up as a lost cause after another few moments, more consumed by its pain than by the chance of a meal, and it swam away tossing its head and gnashing its jaws. Colm felt Nichol's hands on him, gently turning him, cleaning his gills again and searching down his body for the wound. He was gentle when he found it, but nothing could be gentle enough. Colm shrank from Nichol's touch as his blood relentlessly spilled into the muck. This was it, then. He couldn't swim; there was no way to transport him. This was his end, but not Nichol's. That was…all right. That was probably the best fate he could hope to imagine for them at this point.

“Help me!” Nichol shouted, at whom Colm couldn't tell. “Help us! Please, you have to help us! Colm—” He looked down at Colm frantically, cupping his face with hands stained by both his blood and Colm's. “No, I won't let you go now. We've come so far, there must be something I can do. Kiaran swore to me there was a way for us. He would not leave us hopeless! You can't die!” He rubbed his thumbs in gentle circles beneath Colm's eyes, staring at him. Colm stared back, lost in the golden, glistening brown of Nichol's loving stare. If this was the last thing he would ever see, he was lucky.

I love you
, he mouthed, and he knew that Nichol understood him when his breath hitched, then emerged as a moan.
I'm sorry.

“No, no, no.” Nichol cast his eyes up frantically, as though praying. “No, there must be a way. You're a man turned into a merman. You have the luck of the Weathercliffs in your veins. There's magic inside you, Colm, magic that might save you, but how? The only story I know ended with blood and death…” His trembling voice trailed off for a moment, but when he spoke again, it was with new determination.

“If magic could make you, then magic can save you. I can't cut out my own heart, but I can give you my blood.” He reached over and picked something up out of the mud—it was the knife he'd pulled from the nimh-fish's eye. Colm started to struggle, cursing his own weakness when he realized what Nichol was going to do. “Don't worry,” Nichol added faux-cheerfully. “I'm sure I've got enough for both of us.”

He laid the blade against the crease of his elbow, took a deep breath, then pressed the edge deep into his pale skin. He drew it down the length of his arm, wincing and biting his lip, and stopped only just above his wrist. Colm would have cried out with the pain of watching it if he'd had the strength. His own wound felt like nothing compared to the agony of watching Nichol hurting himself, on Colm's behalf.

“It will work,” Nichol said, chanting it over and over. “The Four willing, it will work.” He leaned over Colm, letting his blood drip from his fingers into the palm of his other hand, catching as much as he could before tipping it to Colm's mouth. “Drink it,” he urged. “Drink.” Colm swallowed reflexively, simultaneously enjoying and repulsed by the bright red bounty. It felt odd going down, strangely soothing, and a moment later, his breathing felt easier. Much easier. He looked up at Nichol and licked his lips, then started when he realized that his teeth, a moment ago so sharp, were once again gently rounded.

“It
is
working!” Nichol crowed. “I knew it would. It had to! Let me get the rest of you, quick.” He collected more of his blood and smeared it over Colm's face, and scales peeled off in his hand, revealing smooth skin underneath. Colm's gills fluttered closed and vanished back into his neck, and once he rolled over, his spines met the same fate, falling away into the mud as Nichol carefully worked his blood into Colm's back and arms. He caressed Colm's buttocks, his hips and groin, and both of them let out a sigh of relief as his genitals reemerged from the protective flap they had been hidden under.

“Just the legs now,” Nichol said with a grin, which faltered as he saw the ruin of Colm's fin. “Oh, gods. I hope…Colm…no, don't try to speak,” he added when Colm cleared his throat. It took far more effort than he'd expected. “Whatever it is, we will face it together.”

Warm, slick hands revealed more and more of Colm's other body: his pallid thighs, knobby knees and long calves. One foot was whole and hale, but the other—Nichol dripped his blood onto the wound, too fearful to touch it, and as Colm's foot reemerged, it became clear that he wouldn't be recovering all of his toes. The bulk of the foot was intact, though, and while the wound was ragged, the magic had mostly left it healed. He might have to relearn how to walk, but even that was a blessing.

“Is that all of you?” Nichol asked, his words starting to slur a bit. “Did I get all of you? Because I'm afraid…love, I'm afraid I forgot that you're a bit taller than me.”

“Nn…ni…
Nichol
.” It was the word Colm had wanted to say the most for the length of his sea change, and Nichol looked up at him and brightened on hearing it, his white lips pulling into a grin.

“Colm.” He tried to crawl back up Colm's body, but ended up falling forward, and would have gone face-first into the muddy shallows if Colm hadn't caught him.

“Nichol,” Colm said again, feeling rather more frantic with it now. “We have to stop your bleeding.”

“Nooo,” Nichol crooned, staring up at Colm like he was looking into the face of a god. “You can have my blood. Take it all, so it makes you well. I have to make you well, that's how our story goes. You saved me. Now I must save you.”

“Now I must save
you
again, before you die of blood loss,” Colm said. He turned toward the shore, twisting in the tattered wreckage of his other body. He could see people moving slowly closer, cautious but drawn by their spectacle. “Help me!” he called out. “Please!” They came closer, and Colm tried to push up to his knees, but Nichol's weight and the unfamiliarity of his own limbs kept him down. “Please!”

Eventually a young woman came forward, a knife held at the ready with one hand. Colm shook his head desperately. “We won't hurt you, I promise. We need your help, please,” he begged. Nichol's eyes were shut, and he moaned as his head lolled in Colm's arms. “Please!”

The woman stopped a few feet away and looked intently at Colm, inspecting the sloughed-off blue and gray sheath beneath him before focusing on his eyes. After almost a minute of silence, she grinned. Colm started when he saw how wide her lips stretched, and how sharp her incisors were.

“We will help you.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The people of the little village that Colm and Nichol had foundered upon were, it turned out, very much like him. Over half of them had the wide, mobile jaws and sharp teeth of the water serpents they paid homage to, their way of worship still strong despite the Empire's prohibition on anything other than official priests and official services. They were partials, but with much better control of their gifts than Colm. They were also incredibly kind, once they realized what had happened.

“The world is already hard on us,” the woman who had first approached them, called Meea, said after she'd settled them both in a hut. It was small, but infinitely bigger than the tank Colm had become so horribly accustomed to. “We should not make it any harder for each other. This village is your refuge now, for as long as you want to stay.”

They had clean blankets, fresh water, fruit and spicy cooked fish to eat. There was a roof over their heads to keep the rain off and thin nets coated with tree sap over the windows, to catch and repel biting insects. They were together, and Colm cradled Nichol's head in his lap as Nichol slept, deeply but not dangerously. It was all he could do not to break down into tears. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “I don't know what we would have done without you.”

“The Four would have provided,” Meea told him confidently. “They must love you very much, to guide you to our home. The gods know that we nimh-folk care for our own. How could we turn away a cousin?”

Colm had lost his voice then, unable to deny her allegation of favoritism but unable to wholeheartedly embrace it either. He had bowed his head, let her cup his hands with her own for a moment, and then she had left them alone. Colm stared down at Nichol, so pale and vulnerable, so amazing and alive, and for the first time in his life contemplated that there really had to be more to his story than he knew. How else could they still be together?

It took Nichol over a week of recovery before he could stand up without feeling faint, and during that time, Colm gave the spines that he'd left behind as gifts for the nimh-folk who took care of them. The spines were still venomous, although they seemed not to affect him even now, and pretty enough to be very popular additions to the fishing spears that the younger villagers used. In turn, they gave him and Nichol a place with them, with none of the disgust he could have expected once they realized—and they had to realize—how close they actually were.

Learning to be human once more was difficult. Balancing on his mutilated foot was a challenge, and when an older man offered Colm the use of his walking stick, he accepted it gratefully. He wasn't
weak
, per se, but trying to balance felt odd, and his vision was still not quite correct in his left eye. It was the one place where Nichol's blood hadn't touched, and so while Colm could eat normal food, speak like a man, and was growing out his hair again, his eyesight was still a bit rounded, like looking through the bottom of a glass bowl. It didn't bother him, although Nichol berated himself for missing it.

“Stupid,” he muttered, cupping Colm's cheeks and turning his face a little. “I should have remembered. I can't believe I got everything but that.”

“It doesn't matter,” Colm said.

“But it does! I meant to make you perfect again, and if our hosts are to be believed, then that was our only chance.” The magic Colm carried, apparently, was a fickle creature, all or nothing. The village sage told him that he would probably be safe in the water now, that the curse had run its course, but Colm wasn't willing to risk it. Nichol frowned. “Maybe I could try again…”

“Absolutely not,” Colm insisted. “I'm done with watching you bleed. I'll not have you do it again. I can see just fine.”

“They're different colors,” Nichol said. “Did you know? Your right eye is a stormy gray again, but the left is paler, the pupil bigger.”

“Does it bother you?”

Nichol's smile was a little twisted but genuine. “Only because it's a reminder of my failure. Come here.” He tugged on Colm's arm. “Lie with me.” Nichol was still too ill to do anything other than sleep and eat, but whenever he was awake, he wanted Colm close to him. It suited Colm quite well, actually—he thought he might never get enough of touching Nichol, no glass between them, no ocean to separate them. He settled down on the bed, careful not to bump Nichol's arm, and let his lover rearrange him to his satisfaction. He ended up with Nichol's head on his shoulder, his injured arm tucked gently against Colm's side.

“You have a strange way of counting failure,” Colm said once they were aligned. “Who could have guessed three months ago that we would ever have this again? I thought we were separated forever.”

“So did I.” They had already talked over the transformation, how Nichol couldn't have known what would happen, how it was inevitable that Colm would be submerged at some point, living and working in Caithmor. The guilt Nichol still carried inside him was something that probably only time would diminish, and so Colm held him and kissed him and loved him with everything he had and was patient.

Nichol's lips pressed slightly chilly kisses against Colm's collarbone. “What will we do now?”

Ah, the future. That was the one thing they hadn't talked about yet, and honestly, Colm hadn't been eager to. The past was done, and he was content in the present. He didn't want to think about tomorrow or next week or next year. But he couldn't hide from it, not when Nichol was asking. “What do you want to do?”

Nichol chuckled. “That isn't an answer.”

“It's the only one that matters,” Colm replied. “Truly. I can't go back to Anneslea, and I'm not sure how we would return to Caithmor, since I'm presumed dead by everyone who knew me. Apart from that, all I want is to be with you. Perhaps you could write,” he suggested after a moment, “and see if my sister made it to the Cove. She's all I really worry about now.” The village they were sheltering in had only sporadic, and very careful, contact with the larger world, but they'd already been assured that letters could be sent if they needed. Special traders and caravaneers that catered to the secret places across the empire stopped by every now and then, and Meea expected one to arrive within the next few weeks.

“I can write,” Nichol agreed. “I want to know how Gran is doing, of course, and learn whether she's had any news of the fleet. But where shall I write from? Here? This is a friendly place, but it's a bit hot for my blood, and we would stand out in any nearby town. Not that I think the Spectacular has wasted any more time looking for us. They've likely got plenty of their own problems now, but it's risky.”

“Meea says she knows someone who can help us travel elsewhere,” Colm said. “Someone with experience dealing with my kind, it seems. She says he should be by any time.”

“You look human,” Nichol insisted, not for the first time. “You look perfect. There's nothing amiss in your appearance except the addition of the walking stick. A broad-brimmed hat will shade your face, if it's the eye you worry about.”

“I think sometimes that you love me too well,” Colm said. He meant it to be light, but Nichol didn't take it that way.

“I think sometimes it is astonishing that you love me at all when I've been such a prat,” he said, his lips a terse line. “I know, I know—I'm not doubting you. How could I, after you saved me over and over again?” Colm didn't say anything, just tilted Nichol's face up and kissed his mouth, softening his tension, soliciting a response until Nichol was sweet and relaxed against him, leaning into every embrace.

“Well then, there is one option,” Nichol said once he'd caught his breath. “Travel to a new town, a new city. We could run an inn, if we put our backs into it. You could cook—”

“I would make a terrible cook,” Colm protested, but Nichol swallowed his objection with a kiss and a grin.

“I would be the bartender, we could hire a few comely lasses to wait the tables, and our guests could sleep in august company above their own mounts in the stables, on a bed of straw as soft as cotton.”

“This sounds like an inn destined for failure,” Colm said dryly.

“Nonsense, we could sell it as a challenge. And anyway, if we were close enough to the main highways, we would have traffic regardless.”

“I suppose. Or,” Colm said, warming to the discussion, “we could find a lake where I could fish without worrying, and you could lead the local militia against marauders.”

“Or,” Nichol countered, “we could hire kidnappers to spirit away Gran and Baylee, bring them with us to our new home, get them to run the inn while you fished and I led the militia, and live happily ever after.”

“Megg would kill us,” Colm said.

“True. She would never leave the Cove, not while Granddad is still around.” Nichol sounded a little put out that their fantasy had been so thoroughly derailed.

“Whatever happens,” Colm told him, “we'll weather it together.”

“We'll have to,” Nichol chuckled. “For I won't get very far without you.”

It could have been fate, or the will of the gods, or the last vestige of the luck in Colm's blood coming to aid them, but the man that Meea had spoken of, the trader who arrived the following week that knew how to handle people like them, was a very familiar face.

“Weathercliff!” Fergus shouted at them from across the village's small market square. One of the men had gone to escort his wagons in earlier: apparently, the path to the village changed with every new flooding season, old paths drowning and new ones growing strong. It was one of the things that served to keep them happily isolated. “By the gods, lad, I should have known! What other long, pale, fish-loving bastard would be crazy enough to bloody
swim
from Caithmor to the Siskanns!

“Oh, I've heard all about it,” he snapped, pushing his bulk past their laughing hosts and marching over to Colm. “These folks couldn't
wait
to tell me about their odd guests, and it didn't take much for me to put it all together. Well, stand up, lad! Let me look at you!”

Colm stood up, still using his walking stick, and winced when Fergus put his hands on his hips. “You're limping now? And growin' in your hair again—what happened to that? And
you
!” He saw Nichol and turned to rage at him, flapping his hand at the bandage still wrapping Nichol's arm. “What in the gods' name possessed you to carve yourself up like a festival ham, Pickle? You're lucky to be alive! Marley was right, I should never have bothered with you two in the first place, the things you've done to my nerves.” He huffed, stepped forward and pulled Colm into a rough embrace. “You are a plague on my conscience, lad, someone that I'll worry about for the rest of my life lest I take care of things, eh?”

“
Can
you take care of things?” Colm asked sheepishly.

“Would I even bring it up if I couldn't?” Fergus demanded. “But that's talk for later times. Right now I've got wagons to unload and camels to delouse and a hundred other things waiting to get done, all because you two had to go and distract me from my duties. Marley!”

“What?” the other man yelled back from where he was unloading the first wagon. It was a smaller train this time, only two wagons and the pair of them to work them. The two were packed to overflowing, though, vast mushroom-shaped loads held together with burlap and twine almost, but not quite, falling over the sides.

“Have you found the bitterroot yet?”

“Does it look,” Marley grunted as he loosened a lashing, “like I've found the bloody bitterroot yet?”

“When you do bring some to me, I need it for these ridiculous lads.”

“The faster you get your fat arse over here to help me, the sooner it'll be found!”

“We can help you unload,” Nichol offered quickly. “And you can tell us more of Caithmor!”

Fergus snorted. “You look barely capable of keeping your feet. What makes you think that—bloody Two, Marley!” He hustled back to the wagon just in time to catch a bale of pale blue cotton fabric that was tumbling toward the ground. “You're useless, old man,” he muttered, but neither of them turned Colm's and Nichol's help away after that, or Meea's and her sister's.

It took time to unload the cargo and disperse the special orders that some of the nimh-folk were waiting for, but by the end of the afternoon, things were back in order, one of the wagons empty and the other repacked more efficiently. Fergus accepted an invitation to the sage's house for the evening meal, but Marley went with Colm and Nichol, bringing along a package of bitterroot for them to chew. It would diminish their pain, they were told, and sure enough, one sliver dulled the sharp throb in Colm's foot to a barely there ache.

“I needed a break from that oaf anyhow,” he said gruffly as he sat down in one of the chairs they'd been provided with. “He's been a bit of a wreck this trip, let me tell you.”

“Why is that?” Colm asked around the pulpy root.

“Uncertain times, lad. King Iarra was supposed to be back to the city this spring, but he can't afford to leave the Garnet Isles without a firm hand. That leaves the regent in charge, and apparently, he's decided it's time for a magic purge. Anywhere a priest passes on tales, there'll be a representative of the Ardeaglais there to investigate, with soldiers too.”

“That was why the Roving Spectacular couldn't keep to the main roads,” Nichol said, almost spilling the plate of bread in his haste to speak. “Their ringmaster was afraid of arrest or worse.”

“Aye, and worse is happening.” Marley shook his head. “I don't worry for us so much. Fergus is well-known along these routes, and he can keep his curse hidden away. But they're rounding up people on sheer suspicion, anyone who looks different, anyone who acts a bit strange. Caithmor's enacted strict regulations about regular worship attendance that's got the working class in a bit of an uproar, but the regent won't back down.” Marley looked at them seriously. “You won't be able to go back there.”