My first tasks were menial ones: mending a roof, hauling water from a spring in the forest, and helping Kala reset her fish traps. The work was no great effort, though my eyes wandered every moment to the stone edifice behind the huts. I assumed, with no stretch of the imagination, that this was the temple, and when my work was done, I would enter it, and perhaps catch a glimpse of my beloved for the first time since he was stolen from me.
His god had promised me he would be safe. I would only believe it once I saw him—I had lost my faith in gods. I hoped that the god of this island, to whom the grandmothers paid homage, would prove more worthy of trust.
I grew more impatient as the day stretched on, but I would not ask the priestesses when I would be permitted to see the Dreaming Eye. This was a test, I was certain of it, and not simply three old women asking a young man for help while he happened to stay nearby. I would prove to them that I had both the strength and temperament to be allowed to perform their ritual.
Evening fell, and I ate another meal of fish and hung a hammock of knotted rope between two slender trees. When the others had gone to bed, I followed the smell of the sea down to the northern beach and let the rising tide wash over my feet. Two and a half years had passed since I had washed up on the frozen shore of the steppe, and turned my back upon the ocean for the last time. This beach was soft sand instead of rock, and the wind was pleasant without a hint of the arctic chill that touched the North even in high summer, but I had found the sea again, and it felt almost like home.
Khalim had never seen the ocean. If I could give this to him, even once, I would count my quest well fulfilled.
I slept easily that night, the rocking of my hammock lulling me like the motion of a ship. I dreamt of floating mountains of ice, and the passing of whales in the deep, and the sense of unbridled freedom that a longship once provided me.
When I woke, I sharpened my spear and carried it to the grandmothers’ village. I missed my axe, but this was a fine weapon, and far better for hunting in the woods. If the priestesses had no other tasks for me, I planned to provide all of us with meat.
“Are you going into battle?” the second priestess asked as soon as she saw me. Her name, she had told me the day before as I had repaired the thatching of her house, was Kani, and she was the eldest of the grandmothers. “Not without breakfast, I hope?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said. I sat down and accepted the dish she handed me.
Luana, the first priestess, placed a piece of smooth driftwood onto the cooking fire. “You’ll be going up the mountain today, Eske. The herb we need for the ritual only grows in the high places. Normally we send Kala to do it, but our island’s newest resident has made the path too dangerous for her.”
I set my meal aside, my hunger forgotten.“What do you mean?”
“A great snake swam here from another island two weeks ago,” Kani explained. “It lies in wait upon the path, and it’s big enough to swallow little Kala in one gulp.”
I stood and picked up my spear. No harm would come to the girl as long as I had anything to say about it.
Luana waved an arm at me. “Sit down, young man. I wasn’t finished.”
I obeyed, and picked up my dish again without being instructed to.
“If you must kill the snake, so be it, though we would rather you didn’t. The wild boars have quieted somewhat since it has been here. As for the herb, you are seeking a climbing vine, with round leaves and four white petals. A few good handfuls should do.”
I thanked the priestesses for breakfast, and went to fetch Bran from where he wandered the village outskirts, eating leaves and drinking from the spring. The sea wind kept the heavy air away, and he was much improved, his eyes bright and his breathing steady.
The path up the volcano was a narrow one, walked only by animals and one small girl, but it was clear enough. My spear knocked against a low-hanging branch, sending a pair of sapphire birds flying around my head and screeching their displeasure. They departed and found another branch on which to sit and sing their raucous song.
My legs were well accustomed to slopes after spending a year on the dragon’s mountain, and I maintained a steady pace as I climbed toward the top of the volcano. I took no pains to quiet my steps; I wanted to seem larger than I was, in case the great snake was near.
Half an hour from the grandmothers’ village, I noticed that my footsteps had picked up an echo. I stopped, and in the quiet space I heard a stifled laugh and the rustling of branches.
“Who’s there?” I said out loud, though I knew the answer. “Is it the snake, come to eat me up?”
I turned around as another laugh troubled a low plant with leaves as broad as a cooking pot. I lifted one leaf with the butt of my spear and found Kala crouched beneath it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I’m going up the mountain to find the plant for the ritual. It’s too dangerous for you.”
Kala accepted my hand and stood up. “I thought you might get lost.”
“Didn’t the grandmothers tell you about the snake? They told me it would eat you in one bite.”
She crossed her arms in the image of small, stubborn defiance. “But I always get the flowers, and you don’t even know the way.”
The island was too small for me to lose my way for more than an hour or two, even if I wandered off the path. I considered sending her back to the village, in the hopes that she would obey me after disobeying the priestesses she served. That was looking more unlikely the longer she maintained her obstinate pout. Better to keep her with me, then, where at least I could fend off the snake.
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “I could use a guide. Have you ever ridden a horse before?”
Her eyes went wide, and she shook her head. I took Bran’s lead and brought him closer. He nosed at her hair and the folds of her dress, looking for hidden food. Careful and reverent, Kala stroked the soft plane down the front of his face.
When they finished their introductions, I lifted Kala into the saddle, tightening up the straps and placing her feet in the stirrups. “Hold on tight,” I told her, guiding her hands to the pommel. “If the snake appears, Bran will carry you to safety.”
We continued up the path, Kala holding the saddle as instructed as she rocked back and forth with the horse’s gait. I kept a close hold on the lead and my eyes open for any sign of the prowling serpent.
“Did you get to see the dragon?” Kala asked. “Is she beautiful?”
I remembered the bone-deep terror I had felt upon the mountain peak as the dragon had examined me. “I suppose she is, in a way,” I said. “Her scales shimmer like the ocean in the sun, and her antlers scrape against the clouds. She is wise, as well, and all-knowing. I am honored to have received her guidance on my quest. It’s a quest for true love, you know.”
“It is?” said Kala.
I was reminded of my own sister, though she was older than Kala when I last saw her. By this time, she must have been a woman grown. When we were children, I would tell her stories, and she would listen in rapt attention—my first audience, and perhaps the best, excluding my present company. She liked the stories of monsters foremost, followed by any with young heroines, to whom I always gave my sister’s name.
“My love is trapped in the other world,” I told Kala. “I’m going to rescue him. He is kind and sweet, even to a big brute like me. He saved my life, when I fought a monster in the arena of Phyreios—far north of here, beyond the sea. You’d like him. He’s beautiful, and his hair is soft, and he’s very brave.”
In telling her of Khalim, I did not tell her of his frailties, or of the encroaching madness of the god-touched, how he shook and sobbed in my arms in the middle of the night in terror of his visions. I did not tell her how afraid I had been then. Let Kala think of him as the hero of this story, I thought, and let me remember him the same way.
Kala complained of sore legs, and she climbed down from the horse without waiting for me to assist her. I had no warning but the quiet rustle of leaves before the snake appeared.
It lunged for Kala, its mouth open to reveal two rows of fangs. The foliage hid its grass-green scales, and I could not determine its full length, but the grandmothers had been correct: it could have swallowed Kala in one bite. Its head was half as large as she was, and its body wider than the horse’s. It carved a path through the underbrush, the foliage collapsing under its weight.
Bran kicked and ran up the path. Kala screamed. She still clung to one stirrup, and she stumbled through the underbrush after him. The serpent hissed its displeasure and turned its yellow eyes to me.
I took up my spear and struck below the flat, swaying head. My blade cut a scarlet line into its neck, and the spear’s wings caught against its pale underbelly. With a roar, I shoved the snake off the path and into the trees.
One slitted eye kept watch on the point of my spear as it retreated. The priestesses had said not to kill it, if I could avoid doing so, and I did not pursue it. Perhaps the minor injury would be enough to deter it from the path in the future.
I found Kala and Bran a short distance away, Kala still clinging to one stirrup. She had taken a tumble, and dirt clung to her skinned knees, but she was otherwise unhurt.
“You did the right thing, holding onto Bran,” I said. “Let’s take you back to the grandmothers.”
She wiped at her streaming eyes and running nose with the back of her hand and sniffled. “I wasn’t scared.”
“I know,” I said, and I lifted her back into the saddle.
I spent the afternoon taking Kala back to the village, and by the time I retread the path as far as I had come before, it was nearly dark. I set up camp and hunted wild pigs in the twilight, finally spearing one as darkness fell.
I resolved to continue the climb in the morning and find the herb while the sun shone. Despite the delay, I was content. My belly was full of meat and my fire kept me warm, and I could see the ocean through the trees—and I was closer than I had yet been to seeing Khalim once more.
I banked the fire and drifted off to sleep. In the darkest hour of the morning, I woke to find a solid wall of cold, scaly flesh pressed against my back. The snake had found me.
“It will fit,” I heard a thin, sibilant voice mutter. “Eat good for many days, yes.”
Back to Chapter VI: The Isle of the Priestesses
Forward to Chapter VIII: Volcano’s Edge
It’s been a while since we’ve had a mythical creature!
Thanks for reading. If you’d like to get new chapters early, my Patreon is only $3 a month, and I’m looking at starting an exclusive project up there next month. If not, don’t worry: blog content will always be free!
Space Whales Press 
2 thoughts on “Journey to the Water Chapter VII: The Slope of Ewandar”