Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

her seal eyes and dipping her cold nose to brush against his cheek. Forgive me for not making you stay behind . . . for not keeping you safe. Please, forgive me, Allambee, wherever you are now.

As she pulled away, Chidi’s mind drifted back to their first meeting, sitting with him upon the beach outside of Chicago. Her skin blazed with the memory of him placing pretzels in her hand, his fingers closing around hers.

‘I think you and your friends have to help me,’ she remembered him saying then. How she had wept thereafter at the innocence in his voice. What those in the Salt might do with such a noble, good soul as Allambee Omondi’s had been.

What the Salt did do to you, Chidi told herself, wilting when she glimpsed Atsidi and his warriors watching her mournful display. For all the Nomad faces watching her, she found herself drawn to the Orc hostage, Arsen, also.

His clothing torn, his hands bound behind him and tied to his tail also – Chidi thought that Arsen looked not nearly so frightening now as he had been when attacking her with his fellows. Though she had not meant to look on him again, now she studied the Orcinian in full, the terror of what awaited plain upon his trembling body and the whites of his eyes also.

Help me, Arsen spoke to her alone. Please, little Silkie. I’m so afraid . . . don’t let them kill me. Help me, please. I beg you.

For all his blathering on, Chidi cued on Arsen’s continual use of the word ‘help.’ Though not for his sake, she thought back to Allambee and of all the times he mentioned the need to find and help his father. I couldn’t keep you safe, she thought, turning back to look on her fallen friend again, trying and failing to swallow the lie she told herself; that Allambee was merely asleep in his father’s arms. I couldn’t keep you safe, my friend . . . but I can pass on your message.

Chidi ascended that she might swim in front of Atsidi Darksnout as bravely as Marisa had done. Before I go, she said, reminding herself to be strong and speak up as both Quill and Bryant, Lenny Dolan and so many others had asked of her since she had met them all. Allambee always said his mother told him that you ran away because you feared someone hurting them to get to you. That his mother told him that you trusted no one . . . that it was no way to live.

Aye, said Atsidi. You mentioned both already.

I did, said Chidi, forcing herself to continue. I think that’s why he came to find you. That he thought it might help you to hear those words and his mother’s other message too.

What message?

Chidi’s chest pained as she spoke the words, envisioning Allambee’s voice and manner as she did. He said that his mother told him that we must all learn to trust in others to find peace.

Atsidi frowned. It seems her notions of peace and forgiveness never changed, then. If my son were alive, Chidi, I would tell him such words did offer me some guidance and comfort in my time among the Merrows and those of your kind too when I was imprisoned upon the shore. In truth, with my return to the Salt, I had hoped to spread her message of peace among my own people also. His gaze flickered toward Arsen before returning to focus on Chidi. But here? Now? No, child, he said to her, lifting Allambee’s body in remorseful show. Here be the reminder and proof of what happens when one would turn away from truth in favor of such childish hopes and dreams. This, the reminder of what happens when one holds to ideals and nonsense from those who do not know better. He swam away from Chidi, offering Allambee’s body to a pair of his fellow warriors with Hammerhead tails. Then, he drew the naked blade at his side; one of its ends being a spike, the other a hammer.

Atsidi Darksnout allowed its sheen to dance in the moonlit water around him. Aye, he said, pointing the spiked end of his hammered blade at Arsen. And here be the harsh reality awaiting those who face what those of us swimming beneath the Salt already know full well; for there are truly monsters lurking in every depth of this world, child. He looked on Chidi again, the sadness in his voice belying the madness in his eyes. And from the moment that one chooses to become a monster, there is no turning back from what you are thereafter. Atsidi motioned toward the surface. I pray you never become one such as we are, Chidi. Go now in peace, if only for the memory of my son. Let you swim away and forget this cold and watery realm for the opposite world above. Let you return to the place where dreams and light and hope still exist, child. For it has only ever been a realm of monsters here beneath the Salt. I would not have you linger and become one of us.

Chidi obeyed then, swimming away for the surface world above, even as Arsen’s continued pleas and begging for his life followed her all the while.

Before she broke through the surface, the hostage Orc’s pitiful cries had turned to screams . . . and their echo chasing Chidi Etienne all the way back to the awaiting boat and her remaining companions.

24

GARRETT

After the decision to turn over the Orc hostage, Arsen, to the Hammer tribes and the justice of Atsidi Darksnout, Garrett Weaver had followed his Nomad father into the depths that they might speak and swim alone together.

Where are we going? Garrett asked as they descended further.

Away, my son, said Cursion White Shadow. In troubled times, my father taught me it oft helps to swim away and clear one’s mind.

You think I’m troubled