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

you about someone,” she said to Marisa, going on when the mystic Silkie nodded. “It’s about Lenny Dolan. You said he was okay . . . that you saw him?”

“Aye,” said Marisa, continuing her work. “I saw and knew him from my dreams.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, then?” Chidi asked. “Why didn’t you tell me that Lenny has a role to play in all these other things you see? Back when we were locked away in Crayfish Cavern together. Before Declan set you free.”

“Before we left you there alone, you mean,” Marisa chuckled, as if she read the deeper, truer question to Chidi’s inner thoughts. “As I told you already, Chidi, yours was a different current to follow.”

“You did tell me,” she admitted. “But you also told us earlier that you gave Declan a choice that same night to go with you or no. Why didn’t you give me one?”

Marisa looked away from the puzzle, her knowing gaze unblinking as she looked upon Chidi. “I gave you my answer on this already too, Chidi . . . had I allowed you to come with us—”

“Then you wouldn’t have this ring,” Chidi interrupted, clenching a fist to warm the Merrow ring upon her finger that Wilda had given to her. “That’s not my point. Something you told me when we first met outside the Shedd Aquarium was that there is always a choice, Marisa, but by you leaving me in the cage in Crayfish Cavern . . . I didn’t have one.” Chidi blinked. “You didn’t give me a choice either. You just forced me to take that different direction you needed me to go. Left me for the Nomad brothers to take away with Bryant, before they brought us both to shore and then headed inland to find Quill’s child.”

“Aye,” said Marisa. “What you fail to understand, Chidi, is that leaving you that night in Crayfish Cavern was my choice to a decision placed before me. Had I freed you to come with Declan and I, there should now be a host of the Crayfish’s former slaves that would be dead, or else still trapped by the Salt.” Marisa’s eyes glinted. “Where are those former slaves now, Chidi?”

“Ashore,” said Chidi. “They’re with Zymon.”

Marisa nodded. “And all of them free and far from the Salt. All safe and protected in the haven that Zymon Gorski provides. None of them would be there now if not in thanks to your coming among them.” Marisa’s gaze flickered. “And, again, I say to you, Chidi, that had you not gone ashore with the Nomad brothers, Quill and Watawa, we should not have the Merrow ring, nor Allambee Omondi with us now either.” Her voice sharpened. “Without them, we should all meet our shared end at the hands and tentacles of the Other and his minions in the storm to come.”

Chidi shrunk beneath Marisa’s stern gaze and rising tone. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I just don’t understand is all. There are so many things I don’t understand. This puzzle, or riddle about five pieces of two . . . I don’t know what any of it means.” She rubbed her eyes, the symbols seemingly blurring in her tired eyes. “How did you even find about it?”

“My father often shared many fabled tales of old with me,” said Marisa, her shoulders slumping, the fire in her eyes gone out at the admission. “When I was a child, and despite all my mother’s loathing of them, I remember his love for telling me of the Ancient ways and all their stories. How They ruled over the Salt and all others who swam it without thought that such a paradise should someday come to end.” Marisa chuckled. “Would that my father could see me now here with you, Chidi, the pair of us working to decipher the Ancient, forgotten language.” She focused on the ring upon Chidi’s finger. “Aye, and if he could see us now with one of the five pieces of two already recovered.”

At Marisa’s mention, Chidi unclenched her fist of the hand wearing Wilda’s ring. With her other hand, she ran her fingers over the smooth, plain pebble that served as its lone adornment. “What do you think it does?” Chidi asked. “If it’s a key, like you think that it is, then what does it unlock?”

“I know not for certain,” said Marisa, refocusing on the scattered pieces of parchment before her. “But I hope that all the symbols here will reveal the message and the answer.”

If we ever figure it out, Chidi thought, frowning. “Five pieces of two . . .” she said, more to herself than Marisa. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. How can something be five pieces, but also two?”

“Riddles oft seem impossible until the answer is unraveled.” Marisa chuckled. “But you wonder as I once did.”

“You’ve figured it then?” Chidi asked. “The answer to what can be five pieces and also two? The riddle and what it all means?”

“We should not be down here if I had,” said Marisa. “But I hold to some small belief that I may have worked out a keystone portion of the Ancient riddle, aye. In truth, though, I did not discover it until I headed north alone, after parting ways with you and Declan Dolan.”

“What did you find up there?”

“Snow and stone and cold. Nothing of worthwhile note,” said Marisa. “Just a lonely, Ancient temple, its name and locale lost to antiquity and Salt. And yet I lingered there, believing the Ancients had hidden secrets within the ice-covered, rocky walls. Some glimmer of the past awaiting rebirth if I were patient enough to work out such meaning.”

“And?”

Marisa frowned. “Like so many times before, I was wrong in my estimations there also.” She looked up at Chidi, then scoffed. “For all you think I see and know, Chidi, I assure you there are many times I feel as lost as you do now.” Her mirth died in her throat as she maneuvered another piece