1013, Age of Ascent, High Summer
"If you can forget the first time you looked into your love's eyes and saw a stranger there, then you are stronger than I am."
-The curalli Gershoon Shadowlord.
She dived ahead of him, spraying him in the face with water and nearly hitting him with her feet. Fior shook his hair out of his face and shouted her name.
"Aludra!"
Only the smoothness and stillness of the river's surface answered him. Fior eyed it, trying to tell from the tiny wrinkles where she would next break it, trying to tell which of the many gold-green shapes beneath it was hers-
A hand seized his ankle, and pulled him under. Fior spat air, shifting to his gills, and then whirled and swam after her, grabbing her around the middle just as she tried to swim away. Aludra laughed at him, and her eyes, greener than the green background of her skin, flashed as she tried to kick her way out of his hold.
"Let go!" she said. "Fior, if you don't let go, I really will kick you."
Fior rolled over, so that now he was floating beneath her, though still clasping her close. Aludra laughed again and gave the slight shimmy that she claimed she had learned watching orcan whales swim in the Acrad. And then she was away from him and diving to the bottom of the river, kicking up a cloud of mud to hide her trail.
Fior dived beneath it, using it to shield him from her gaze. He knew her, and she would be looking over her shoulder, glancing through her white hair, trying to make sure he was on her trail. After all, she didn't want him to give up too easily.
It worked. Aludra appeared above him, looking back in some concern. Fior streamed up beneath her and caught her around the waist again.
Aludra rolled both of them into the bottom, and they spent some time rubbing river mud into each other's hair before they were satisfied and struck out for the surface.
*****
"That was fun."
Aludra smiled at Fior as he leaned back against the bank and closed his eyes, letting the sun dry the mud in his blond hair without a care for what he looked like. He always looked like this after one of their races. Neither of them ever won, and that was just the way he liked it.
Aludra had to admit that she liked it too, which was unusual. They competed fiercely against each other in everything else, and one of them overmatched the other. She was not sure why the river races should be different, why as soon as they entered the water again the ripples seemed to wash the determination from her.
"You know," she said, drifting over to float beside him, and waiting until he slung a companionable arm around her shoulders, "we should tell my mother when we plan to have the wedding."
"Why?" asked Fior, his eyes still closed, his face tilted upward in the not-quite-exact direction of the sun. "Let her stew in it. She was the one who told you that you weren't right for me, and I wasn't right for you, and the Lord Mareth wouldn't approve."
"She's changed her mind, Fior, you know that." Aludra rolled her eyes at his shut ones. Fior tended to see things in simple terms, and to keep on seeing them so, even after they had changed for good. "She thinks that the Lord Mareth will bless our union and allow our souls to be bound to each other, even though she doesn't think we personally are the best match."
"Pitiless old umanital."
"I should kill you for saying something like that about my mother."
Fior's golden eyes popped open, and he regarded her with some wariness. "You won't, though, will you?" he asked.
Aludra just grinned at him.
"She is, though," said Fior, when the pause continued and lengthened.
"She is," Aludra agreed, taking pity on him. "But that doesn't mean that I would ever say it in front of her, and it means that I want you to be placid and polite when we meet her at the wedding. She's the one who has to join us. She wouldn't want to hear of someone else joining her only daughter, even if she doesn't agree with my choice of a partner."
"I'm only glad that she didn't manage to poison your mind completely against me," said Fior, taking her hand and gazing into her eyes.
Aludra smiled at him. "Nothing could do that," she said, opening and closing her gill slits to show how serious she was. And, at that moment at least, she sincerely believed it.
Fior's eyes darkened a little, and he opened his mouth as if he would say something serious. But splashing from upstream attracted his attention, and he turned his head, eyes darkening still more. "What's that?"
"A scream," said Aludra, who had heard the sound a moment before she recognized what she was hearing. The voice was undeniably river Elwen. "One of our kinsfolk is in trouble."
They flipped forward and dived, moving with one accord under the surface towards the sound, as swift as sharks on the hunt.
*****
Fior drew in his breath as he came around the bend of the river. What had those damn idiots done now? Peaceful protests and telling everyone around them just what angered them about the worship of Lord Mareth were one thing, but this...
Two young male river Elwens held a thrashing victim down in the water, and Fior could hear her cries for help growing fainter and fainter. She was just a child, too young to swim without help, and certainly too young to switch from lungs to gills when she was suddenly placed in the water. And the two who held her, laughing, did not seem inclined to take her back to the surface for a breath.
Fior glanced over his shoulder at Aludra. She had seen the pair and the child as well, and understood at a glance what was happening- at least on the surface, Fior thought with a sinking sensation in his stomach. She flashed him a quick hand gesture that he understood and moved to the left, arrowing towards Imlon.
She would take him down. That left Fior the one on the right.
Castarall.
With a swift opening and closing of his gill slits, Fior streaked forward. He moved side by side with Aludra, just as fast and graceful in the water as she was. She glanced at him with a faint smile, then turned forward again, all her amusement and competitiveness melting away into a mask of sleek fury.
Fior was glad that she was no longer looking at him. He didn't think that he could sustain the expression she would expect of him. He was feeling sick and confusion-minded, and was sure that it showed on his face.
Nevertheless, he continued to swim forward, and when Castarall turned his head in surprise, Fior hit him in a powerful tackle that knocked him away from the little girl.
The child swam at once for the surface. Fior managed to see that much before Castarall turned on him as on an enemy, and they began to fight.
The battle twisted and rolled and dodged from side to side, something like his underwater tussles with Aludra, but nowhere near as friendly. By this time, Fior thought Castarall had recognized him, but he didn't let up on the heavy punches he slammed home, or the way that he tried to clamp his hands over Fior's gills, to force him to stop breathing and seek the surface. Fior opened his mouth, using the weapon that Castarall seemed to disregard, and bit him hard on the hand.
Castarall shrieked, a high sound that traveled well underwater, and rose to the surface with a flurry of kicks. His blood stained the water, shining faintly gold-green. Still with that sick feeling in his stomach- and with none of it coming from the taste in his mouth, though that was disgusting enough- Fior rose after him.
They got up just as Aludra and Imlon did. Aludra had managed to knock Imlon unconscious, and she was turning around with a triumphant smile. Castarall stared at his bleeding hand, and then turned and screamed at Fior, not even taking note of Aludra's presence.
"Damn it, Fior! What did you think you were doing? We had a bargain!"
*****
Aludra felt her smile congeal. What was happening? Did Fior know these criminals? She had never seen them before in her life, but that didn't mean that Fior didn't know them. They came from another nemlae village, she was certain, and Fior spent a lot of his time out swimming the river and talking to other villagers.
"Fior?" She said it softly, in the tone that made names more intimate between them than the name of beloved.
Fior floated there with his head hanging. Then he turned to her, and Aludra shook her head a little, sickened, at the look in his eyes.
Perhaps it was the headshake that decided him. But his shamed look vanished, and he regarded her with chin up and back all but straight. Aludra felt a thrill of admiration as she regarded him, in spite of what he had apparently been condoning. This was the Fior she knew, the man she had fallen violently in love with.
"I have been party to some talk about the Lord Mareth," said Fior quietly. "There are some who feel that the old ways are not honored, and that that is the reason that so few children are born to us now."
Aludra shook her head. "Few children are born to us because those who join can't produce them. You know that as well as I, Fior." She glanced at the little girl, who had scrambled up on the bank and was watching them all with large, frightened eyes. Her hair hung, wet and bedraggled, around her face, and she looked as miserably afraid of the water as any land Elwen or human or corama child Aludra had ever seen. She stared at them a moment longer, then turned and bolted up the bank.
Aludra felt her anger return as she turned her stare on the man who floated not far from Fior, and who had called her beloved by name as well. "Why did you think that killing a child would bring back our ability to produce children? Did you really think that the Lord Mareth would accept such a sacrifice?"
The man laughed. Aludra winced. He had a voice as harsh as a raven's. "No," he said. "That is not the bargain. He does not ask for a child's soul. That is not what he would take from her death."
"Well, then?"
"He would see that he meant business," said the man proudly. "He would see that we meant to honor him as he should be honored. And then he would send his blessing back among us, and insure that those who joined were able to produce children."
Aludra looked at Fior.
"It wasn't supposed to be that way," he said, still facing her, still proud, still fierce, though now he looked a little more beaten down than before. "One of those who honors the Lord Mareth in the old way was supposed to give his life, freely, swimming out into the middle of the river and letting the Lord claim him when he would. They weren't supposed to kill a child." He glared at the man as well. Aludra turned her stare back on him, and the man finally looked a little cowed.
"We had to," he said softly. "My- my wife failed to birth another live one this morning, Fior."
"I'm sorry, Castarall," said Fior, and it seemed as though he meant it. Aludra blinked. He had known this man and his group for a long time, then. He must have known them for a long time, to be so intimate with them. "But killing another's child might only tell the Lord that you are jealous of your neighbor's ability to have children, not that you want children of your own."
Castarall shook his head. "You don't understand," he said. "Do you know what they will do to us when they find out, Fior?"
"They will kill you," said Aludra. They were speaking entirely too much on their own, as if nothing that she said or did mattered, and so she felt the need to inject something. "They don't want someone who would slay his neighbor's child around."
Castarall gave her a look of such hatred that Aludra blinked, quelled for a moment. "You don't know anything," he said. "You don't know how deep the division in our people runs, and you don't know that your chosen husband is on one side of it, and you're on the other."
Aludra turned to look at Fior. He couldn't really mean that. He couldn't mean that he had joined his people who thought it was right to drown a child as a sacrifice to the Lord Mareth-
But again Fior's head hung, and again he couldn't look at her.
"I'll take him, lady."
Aludra started as Castarall swept forward and took the unconscious man she still held from her arms. He dived at once, calling so that they could both hear him, "We must move. The village will drive us out. But this is only the first strike. Many, many others were made. Choose, Fior, and do it soon, or you won't get your chance to choose which side you should be on in the war."
And then they were alone.
"What war?" asked Aludra, and her mouth felt full of tears.
*****
Fior sighed. He had known that he would have to tell her someday, but he had thought he would be able to tell her gradually, work her around to accepting the reasoning that had won him. Now he had to tell her face-up, and all at once, and with her heart already prejudiced towards what he thought was a noble cause.
"You know that many of us have not had children lately-" he began haltingly.
"I knew that much." Aludra leaned forward, her eyes fixed on his face. "I know that you're part of a group of people who think you have to kill children to bring back the Lord Mareth's favor. What I want to know is why in the name of the stars you allowed yourself to become involved in this."
"The original plan was for a fitting and willing sacrifice, as I said," said Fior. "And this change of plans was not my idea."
"Should it have been? Just how close are you to them, Fior? Are you in their inner councils?"
"All but their leader." It didn't occur to him to lie. He had never lied to Aludra directly, only kept his involvement with the Dermenda-Mareth separate from his life with her, in the same way that she didn't share all the troubles that her mother heaped on her with him. Only later did he think that she might have preferred to hear a lie to what he told her.
Aludra closed her eyes. She didn't gasp; she didn't clutch her heart and drift backwards in the water, the way that someone shocked was supposed to do in all the great dramatic songs. But the slowness of the motion, and the grief stricken and stamped in the lines of her face, was more than enough to tell Fior the truth.
"Aludra-"
"What did he mean?" she whispered, still not looking at him. "That a war was coming, and that we stood on opposite sides?"
Fior clenched his hands. "I had hoped that it would not come to this. The sacrifice was supposed to be performed, willingly. But all of the men and women in the Dermenda-Mareth are joined, and none of us wanted to leave our husbands or wives. So there was delay. And frustration. And now- this." Fior sighed. "There are those who think the Lord Mareth has abandoned us, and others who think that a disease has come to our people, and others who want us to decline and go into the darkness of the mud without a fight."
Aludra's eyes flashed open, and he saw the fire in her, the fire that could continue burning even underwater, the fire that he had always loved in her. "Do you think I am one of those last?" she asked. "Of course I want children. Of course I would not give up trying to have them."
"No," said Fior quietly. "I think you are one of the second group. This is a disease."
"It is."
"Then why are almost all of us affected, without other symptoms?" Fior shook his head. "And why are other villages, who keep the old ways and honor Mareth, still having children?"
"They're at a distance," said Aludra, and Fior sensed that she was trying, with great effort, to control herself. "They haven't yet contracted the disease."
"And when they do, what then?" Fior asked. "Our race will die. The priests of Mareth pray to him, but they do not honor him in the old way."
"Willing sacrifice," said Aludra. "Of the whole being."
Fior nodded.
"You would give up your soul?"
Again, Fior nodded.
"That is sickening," said Aludra, and her face shone with passion. "To think that you are willing to abandon your soul, just so that-"
"We can have children?" asked Fior softly. "Does it still seem so sick, then?"
Aludra turned away from him, gazing down at her hands. "And now one has done it," she said. "Everyone is too afraid. Did that include you?"
"I am as guilty as anyone else." Now that it had come to the part he had most feared telling her, Fior found that his heart wasn't pounding so hard after all, and he could face her without even his gills fluttering in agitation. "I wanted to enjoy life with you, and see perhaps if we could have children. The others allowed it, since all of them had tried several times to have children and failed. They thought I might do better. They hoped so. One success might have meant hope for them all. But I am willing to go to the water, if nothing else can be done."
"I am not willing that you should do so," said Aludra, raising her head and turning back to him.
****
Aludra could see from the glow in Fior's eyes that she had surprised him. She smiled as softly as she could, given that she wanted to scream and beat him about the head until he woke up, and gave up this insane dream. He was mad. He could see that, couldn't he? He could sense that this wasn't the right thing to do, this giving up of his soul?
All chance at an immortal life, gone. All that was his spirit, the flashing light in his eyes, the tenderness with which he held and made love to her, gone. He wouldn't be dead, when there was still hope that she might meet with him if she chose the same thing that he did. He would be vanished forever, as if a darkness Elwen had eaten him.
"No," she said. "You will not give up your soul, not as long as I have a say."
Fior tilted his head slowly. "The others know that they can't get away with sacrificing children now," he said. "Not nemlae children, at least."
"What do you mean?" asked Aludra.
"They will try for humans, and other Elwens, and anyone who crosses the rivers, by boat," said Fior. "That is what will start the war. And it will be other nemlae, as well, joining the ones who are attacked and doing what they can to hunt down the Dermenda-Mareth." He looked at her. "Will you join the army, on the side of those who wish to stop us?"
"Fior- you can't mean-"
Damn it, he did mean. Aludra saw the light in his eyes and knew that he would cut her heart and his out before he would turn his back on something that he thought was right.
"I can," he said. "I do." The echo of her thoughts was so close that Aludra shivered. "I understand them, Aludra. They are not evil, only driven mad by despair. The priests have no answer for them, and the healers can find no cure for this disease, if disease it is. They want children, and to have them they feel they must give up life. They don't want to do it themselves, and so they will try for others. If I remain with them, there is a chance that I can convince them to do what the group was first formed to do, and go to the river themselves, and in peace, and with willing hearts."
"Convince them to give up their souls. No, I will not be a party to this."
Fior bowed his head. "And I will remain with them. The bond runs too deep to be severed now."
"Fior, they were trying to drown a little girl." Aludra kept her reply soft. The choice was simple. She felt it should be simple.
"And the priests murmur to them to wait, as their children die one by one." Fior's reply was just as soft, and just as firm. To her shock, Aludra realized this was something he had thought about for a long time. "No, Aludra, I don't have any patience with this talk of disease, when no effort is made to find a cure."
They floated there, looking at each other for a moment.
"We will be on opposite sides of a war?" Aludra had to ask the question. She thought she would never forgive herself if she did not ask the question.
"We will."
And that caused their hearts, and the wall between them, to shatter at once.
Aludra felt her mouth fill with tears as she swam over and clasped Fior around the waist. He clasped her back, bowing his head so that his chin rested in her hair.
"Fior, what are we going to do?" whispered Aludra. "I love you, but I will not compromise. What you are doing is wrong."
"And I love you, but I will not compromise. What you are doing is wrong."
They clung together. Aludra drew back at last and looked him in the eye. "You will not be called yet? They won't want you to swim away with them just yet?"
"Not yet," said Fior. "Not for a few days, I would think. It will take time for the news to spread, and for others to become aware of the existence of the Dermenda-Mareth."
"Then come- come with me." Aludra pulled his hand.
"Where?"
"To race."
Of one accord, they dived.
