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

a cage with no right choice offered to you for release. Instead, like most wise creatures finding themselves ensnared, you rightfully accepted the freedom I offered you instead by my decision.

But Ishmael made the others doubt me . . . said Garrett. I saw them looking back at me and whispering as they left. Now, they either think I’m weak for not killing Arsen, or else they think I’m more loyal to the Orcs.

Or, perhaps, the wisest of them saw your mercy, said Cursion. Concern yourselves with how others see and judge you, my son, and soon you will find yourself trapped in a maddening tide, swirling endlessly around and around until the weight of such thoughts drowns you with the ever-changing weight and force of their judgements. A true leader will swim alone against all others for that which is right, if only in hopeful show that others will see and understand such truth laid bare.

The truth is that I’m like Arsen now though, said Garrett. With enemies on both sides.

Cursion chuckled. You will make still more if holding to such beliefs, my son. For no matter the choice you made tonight, Ishmael would have found a way of using your answer against you to suit his own needs. If you had killed Arsen, no doubt Ishmael would have argued that you truly have no allegiance to either people for your willingness to slay one of your own kind. That you would do the same to a Nomad hostage too, if you were among the Orcs and with a similar choice forced upon you. Cursion shook his head. While killing the Orc tonight would have earned you some fear among the people, it would be the least of them to honor you so. The wiser ones will laud you for patience and wisdom beyond your years for refusal of Ishmael’s taunts.

Garrett frowned. It didn’t seem that way with the others that swam off.

No, said Cursion. But I have often found those with the loudest voices among the people are most often the least of them too. With time comes wisdom, my son, and saner minds prevail more often than not. Just as yours did tonight.

What about the times when they don’t? Garrett glanced into the above where he knew the other Nomads swam.

Best to swim away then, my son. Cursion laughed. Aye, as we are doing together now.

Garrett took his answer to heart, refocusing on their silent swim and diving for still quieter waters. We’ll still have to go back, eventually, he knew, glancing upward to the lighter water, imagining the Nomad horde awaiting them and what whispered words Ishmael shared among them about Garrett’s refusing to kill Arsen.

Cursion cued on his silence. You are troubled still, my son?

Yes, said Garrett. I was just thinking that I wish we didn’t have to go back up. That we could just keep swimming down here alone, rather than keep going to the capital.

Another dream we share, said Cursion. In truth, I have long prayed for a day that we might swim away together and seek out your mother, Makeda, too.

Garrett sighed. Given that we’re swimming to war against the Merrows and the Orcs, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Nor me either, said Cursion. But that is why one should always continue to dream, my son, for dreaming is but another means of escape too. A vision of better days gone by, or else to imagine all those days you hope to bring in the times to come.

Garrett thought on that a while before speaking again. You really think the day would ever come that you and Makeda could swim together again? That she would forgive you?

Much as I wish for it, no, said Cursion. Not in this lifetime, rather. But, once we both venture to the Other side, aye, perhaps there, swimming with both her father and me, perhaps then your mother and I might finally come to an understanding of that which drove us apart so long ago.

You were the one to kill her father though, said Garrett. And if you killed him, then why would he ever help you, even on the Other side?

Because even though we were enemies, your grandfather was a warrior, once, said Cursion. For all the hate dividing us, Orcin Blacktide was among the most fearsome sort . . . and all true warriors pray for a good death. Cursion shrugged. The wise ones say that in death all things are made new. All the old hurts and hatreds forgotten. All of us made as children are meant to see the world and others in it also. Free of judgement, worry, and concern. Nothing left to us but to swim and revel in the green waters with all those gone before. Perhaps there, with eternity on our side to speak and listen with the other, perhaps then Orcin Blacktide and I might settle the old disputes between us. Aye, if only so that his daughter and I might share the life we once craved here and live that dream in the green waters of hereafter instead.

Garrett thought of Makeda for a moment before he replaced her face with those of Tom and Cristina Weaver. He wondered if they too swam in the place that Cursion and other Salt folk spoke of. He pictured them just so, both swimming together through the crystal waters of Fiddler’s Green that Lenny Dolan had told him of. He was about to ask the high chieftain to tell him more of the Salted afterlife when another interrupted their shared swim.

A glimmer at first, Garrett thought the shark form looked like a ghost in the elsewise darkened water as it rapidly descended to join them. Nearing both, the Oceanic Whitetip form fell away, leaving only the tail to support the human torso and face of the Night-Stalker leader.

Cursion called out to the approaching Nomad. Short-Shore . . . what brings you to this depth, my friend?

More tidings from the