Tempest

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

The next three days were a blur of bumps and rocks and near misses, and Colm wasn't the only one to feel the pain of it. Kith complained mightily to Nichol and whoever else would listen, going on and on about his aching guts and the hard seat and how this new route was doing him no good.

"Blasted seer, turning us away from the main roads," Kith muttered to Nichol as he tossed a handful of sea roaches through the tank's grate. "Says there's flooding coming down from the Spires. It's washed out the roads leading down from the mountains and sent the early caravans scurrying to the coastal road. This is faster, according to he. Faster." Kith winced and arched his back. "P'raps, but it's worse on my damn bones."

"I suppose he knows what he's doing," Nichol offered as he prepared some wood for a fire. "You've relied on him for a long time, haven't you?"

"Oh aye, aye. Born afflicted by magic, that one. Most parents would have thrown away a babe with such a clear disability, but Regar is a powerful sorcerer in his own right and he knew his son's potential. That boy was speaking spells before he could walk properly, I hear, but he hasn't got his father's gift for that. The prophesying, though... That's always right. Always. Kiaran doesn't always have kind words to say, but you learn soon enough to listen to 'im when he turns them on you."

"Has he ever seen into your future?" Nichol asked. The fire was burning now, just a fragile little flame, but Nichol was tending it carefully and coaxing it higher. The log it was built from was split into quarters, with each piece stood up on end to face the others. The tinder was on the ground in the center of it all, and the heat was channeled up the splits as it burned from the inside out, funneling the warmth into the pot that Nichol had laid on top of it.

"Once," Kith said, sitting down with a grace that belied his purported pain. "A few years back, I met a woman in a town just outside the Siskanns—that's them marshes, the great bogs. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, long dark hair, breasts as big as melons, and could she ever cook... She cooked for me every day, and it was divine. Settled this stomach of mine like nothing but drink's ever managed to." He patted his ever-present bulge, incongruous beside the skinniness of his legs and arms. "The Spectacular was stopped there for two weeks, and by the end of it I knew I wanted to marry 'er. I was going to ask, but Kiaran caught me that evening, and he took off his blindfold and he said to me, 'Find out what she looks like at night before you choose to spend the rest of your life with her.'

"An' I thought about it for a moment, and I realized that it was maybe a bit strange that she'd never let me stay past sundown. So I went back to her home that evening, quiet like, and I watched her leave the house for the nearest waterway, and I followed. It was a dangerous place. I could see the nimh-fish from the shore, big'uns, snapping their jaws in the air. I was going to call out to her, but she..." Kith shook his head.

"She crouched down on all fours at the edge of the water, and the next thing I know, she's sliding into the water on a scaly belly. Part nimh, she was—not completely changed, I could still see her feet and hands, but her skin and face..." Kith shuddered. "Made me wonder what kind of meat she'd been feedin' me when I came courting."

"Part nimh-fish," Nichol mused. "It makes one wonder how that happened. I mean, aren't they... They're a kind of serpent, aren't they? Could they somehow couple with a human?"

"Sometimes it's a curse that does it," Kith said. "Has to be a strong one to affect an unborn child like that, but I knew a sorcerer who claimed he'd been paid to do it once. The babe died before it could be born, though, took the mother with it. Dark business." Kith shrugged and poured a skin of water and some dried vegetables into the pot.