I had not expected so solemn a swearing. The cost to his pride could not be small.
“Thy pledge honors me, relagai,” I said, inclining my back in deference. “All the more for our disharmony.”
At least my own part seemed uncomplicated—unlike the other oaths that bound me. I laid my palms over his, and the world—sunlight, colors, shapes, and outlines—dimmed and faded, as if reshaping themselves. Moments later, when he released my hands, the cast of the world returned to its normal state, as if I had but waked. He gestured toward the foaming sea. Time to wash.
I hesitated. It was not that I was shamed. Nakedness in the proper time and place was comfort and pleasure, not wicked. But somehow, when I glanced at Kol, I imagined myself as one of the transparent shrimp standing beside the scarlet sea star. And somewhere Saverian would be watching…ready, no doubt, to catalog my lacks.
My vayar raised his eyebrows and inclined his head toward the water. Waiting.
Reluctantly I shed my layers and tossed them onto the sand above the tide line. My bare feet had become something inured to the chilly sand, but the cold wind stung, my manhood retreated, and my first step into the water was a badger’s bite. By the time I’d submerged to the knees, my teeth clattered like hailstones on a tin roof. If I were to be done with this before my blood congealed, I’d best move faster. I lunged a few steps farther into the oncoming waves and sat.
“G-g-great Iero’s m-m-mercy!” Unfortunate if some ritual silence was required.
Once sure my heart had not stopped, I scooped sand from underneath me and hurriedly scrubbed at my flesh. The waves slammed into my back and lifted me from the sea bottom, threatening to tumble me over, but I splayed my legs and dug in my heels. For the most part I managed to stay upright and keep the salt water out of nose and mouth.
After the briefest service to every spot I could reach, I floundered and lurched toward the shore, only to discover what I should have expected. Emerging wet into the wind felt far, far colder than sitting in the water. “C-c-could we be quick about this?” I mumbled.
A scowling Kol moved to my side and cupped his hands about my right shoulder. Warmth flowed from his touch and again the world shifted. The sunlight dimmed, and the shore receded as if a great fog had settled over it. I no longer felt the buffeting wind or the gritty sand, but only Kol’s warm hands and the sea that crashed and gurgled about my ankles, tugging at me…breaking the bounds of my skin…pouring into me…filling me. Drowning me…
Do not be afraid, Valen. Kol’s sharp command interrupted my growing panic. To make this passage, we must step outside the bounds of bodily form. This sea is myself and will not drown thee.
I lost myself—limbs and torso, head and privy parts dissolved. His hands yet anchored me—one solid point of heat, a tether to the world, all that stood between me and blind terror. All else was embracing water, as if I were the immortal sea star tucked securely in the tide pool, knowing that any broken part of me would form another self, and that the tide would bring me all I needed to live. I trusted Kol, and so I drifted…tasting salt and fish and sand. I smelled green sea plants, felt the tickle of wind on the surface and the great heavy urging of the god of tides—everything a curiosity. I wondered at the endless play of daylight in the shallows and shied from the shadows of the boundless deeps. Fish in silver armor darted past me…through me…
For a nestling, such life as this is the greater part of what he knows—the safety and comfort of a parent’s sianou, its myriad parts, its voice and texture, and the elements that make it live. Kol’s voice existed everywhere around me and inside me, though I could not say I heard him. The remasti of separation shifts a nestling from an existence sheltered and constrained by sire and dam into one shaped by his own body—a much greater change for most than for thee, one who has lived across a multitude of seasons constrained by flesh—however ill-fitting. Now, thou must choose to step beyond this place and allow thy true nature to reshape thy flesh. Let my hand guide thee.
From the anchor point, warm strong fingers began to re-create my invisible arm, moving down its length as a sculptor’s fingers might smooth his clay. Only this sculptor’s fingers left traces of fire and blade in their wake. Cutting, burning, tearing…
Pain and panic bade me fight, but I could not locate the rest of my body. Nor could I find voice in the sea to scream or beg that he should stop before what flesh I yet owned was left in tatters.
Be easy, Valen, he said, as he released the fingers of one disembodied arm and shifted his touch to the place where another ought to be. I but release what is bound in thee. It is so difficult, I believe, because thy true senses lie buried deeper than those of a nestling. Be easy and dream of the wide world. I shall not harm thee.
Both arms now pulsed with agony. While the greater part of me yet floated insubstantial in the gray-blue water, I existed amid the frothing surf and freezing wind as well. Great gray masses of cloud boiled on the horizon, reaching for the sun.
Kol’s hands left my fingers and began to sculpt a thigh. Great gods among us…
By the time his hands released my second foot, I existed wholly in the familiar world, sprawled on my face with my mouth full of sand. Though fire raged in my legs, my arms had fallen numb. I was afraid to move. I was afraid to look.
He relinquished my burning toes. “Stand now, Valen, that we may end this passage properly. Thou art free to wander Aeginea, and none may hold or hinder thee without our argai’s consent.”
Entirely wrung out, I moved slowly to all fours. Every quat of my length felt something different from every other. Frozen or scorched or nothing. Worst…I could not feel my hands at all. “What’s wrong with me?” I croaked.
He offered me his hand, but I was loath to touch him again. I stumbled to my feet and stared at my skin. My chest and abdomen and groin remained as they ever had been, cold pale flesh and dark hair caked with sand, but the now-hairless skin of fore and upper arms, of hands and fingers, of thigh and leg and foot, appeared an ugly mottled gray. Dead. No pattern was discernible, and certainly no beauty or power. And as the fire of Kol’s touch died, every particle of that flesh lost all sensation. I shook my lumpish hands, kneaded them, slapped my arms and dying legs with no effect. “By Kemen Sky Lord, Dané, what have you done to me? I can’t feel anything!”
Knitting his brow, he reached out to take my arm. I jerked away and stepped back, wincing from the fire in one foot, stumbling over the deadness in the other. “Stay back.”
“Does not the world speak to thee?” he said, puzzled. “Thy gards will clear as thy senses waken, and take on their design as you walk the days. Touch the wind, rejongai.”
“I can’t feel the wind, not with dead limbs! Is this your clever vengeance? What of Danae justice that punishes only the guilty?” I could not strangle his long straight neck, for my blighted arms could be used as naught but bludgeons.
“No, no. All was done as prescribed. Thou shouldst discern more than before. More intently. More delicately.”
His conviction did naught but unravel me the more. My chest and stomach seemed stuffed with sodden wool that thickened and compacted with every breath. I dropped to my unfeeling knees and plowed my hands into the sand that might have been silken pillows or hot coals for all I could tell. Wrenching my focus tight, I sought magic, but no warmth flowed through my dead fingers. I sat back on my heels and roared in rage and frustration. “You’ve killed me, you cursed gatzé.”