C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

His skin, his gaze, his entire being, darkened as though a storm came over the ocean. “You have no idea what you bear in your hands, mortal woman.”

Lara looked at the staff, then over her shoulder at Aerin, hoping for guidance. Instead she found Aerin on her knees, wide-eyed and pale, knuckles pressed over her mouth. A posture reserved for devotion, Lara remembered, and her heart knocked. Aerin had shown no such reverence in discussing Rhiannon, whom she’d called their goddess. Whatever the elfin sea lord was, it was evidently well beyond Aerin’s expectations.

Lara turned back to the water-creature, just as glad she’d had no expectations to be shattered. “You’re probably right. I probably don’t. But I found it so I could heal with it, if it’s possible. If it’s not, I’ll bring it back to my world and hide it again rather than let it be used here to do more harm.”

“That staff should not be taken from Annwn or the seas,” he snarled. Lara could see Emyr in him suddenly, the two of them both creatures of such elemental power and great age that arrogance was their greatest stock in trade. But the sea man relented a fraction, not precisely softer, but indulging in a clear curiosity: “I hear truth in your words, mortal female. Are you an arbiter of justice?”

“I’m a truthseeker,” Lara said cautiously. “My name’s Lara, Lara Jansen. I don’t know if I’m an arbiter of justice. I do know that two men of royal blood are somewhere in the Drowned Lands, and without them I’m never going to find out the truth of what happened to Annwn, or have a chance at setting it right. And I know this staff is God damned dangerous.” Twice. That was twice in ten minutes she’d used a phrase that almost never passed her lips. Kelly, back at home, thought Lara’s reluctance to damn in God’s name was quaintly amusing. In the Barrow-lands, though, Lara had learned that naming the Holy Trinity was a magic in and of itself, and the curse carried a particular weight. Lara turned a brief glower at the staff, as though it had prompted her to swear, then gave her attention back to the watery man. “I’d be just as happy to finish what I need to do with it and give it to someone with a record of being able to handle its power.”

“And who would that be?” This time real interest lightened the sea elf’s voice, and Lara wondered if answering would be condemnatory. She was certain, though, that not answering would carry a price of its own, and after a moment shrugged.

“Another mortal. A poet named Oisín.”

“Mortals,” the water creature growled, then, more approvingly, “Poets. There may be wisdom in that; poets cross the boundaries of age and time. But that staff is not meant to be ruled by anyone, Truthseeker. Not for long.”

Lara hesitated. “Not even by one such as you?”

Something complex happened in his eyes, ancient sorrow rising to mix with chagrin and unequivocal acceptance. “I was never meant to rule it at all. I learned that long ago.”

The corner of Lara’s mouth curved up. “All the more reason to help me get into the Drowned Lands, so I can rescue the prince, save the world, and return it to neutral hands.”

“Neutral.” The sea man’s eyebrows, barely noticeable until he spoke with them, rose. “This poet is neutral?”

“I think he loved her. Rhiannon, the one whose staff it had been.”

The sea lord stiffened, the water coursing beneath his skin going still. Lara bit her lower lip, then rushed on. “I think he went to great lengths to protect it so no one else could use it. No one unworthy. Maybe it’s not neutrality, but it’s a different path from the one it seems Emyr and Hafgan took. It looks more like neutrality, and from where I’m standing, that might be close enough.”

Slowly, incrementally, he relaxed again, until his was a body in motion once more, all the moods of the ocean reflected in him. “An arbiter indeed. Tell me, mortal woman, Lara Jansen, Truthseeker. The journey into the Drowned Lands is not a gentle one. Are you prepared to undertake the trials?”

“I am.” A twinge of honesty struck her and she added, “I don’t understand what that means, really, but I’m willing to try. This land, Annwn, it’s damaged. Even I can see that, and I’ve only been here a little while. Oisín made a prophecy about me. He called me a truthseeker and a worldbreaker, and said I’d find the way to mend the past. The only way I can see to do that is going in there.” She nodded at the sea beyond him, marveling briefly that she’d become accustomed, in a few short minutes, to the way it held itself apart from the silver road. “I want to help,” she said quietly. “Please help me to help.”

“And your companion?” The sea lord took apparent notice of Aerin for the first time, and Lara heard her flinch to attention.

“I will join her if you’ll permit me, Lord.” Aerin’s soprano was ragged with emotion, and she came forward roughly to stand beside Lara when he gestured for her.

He pressed his thumbs against their foreheads, a cool watery touch. Power staggered Lara, power unlike any she’d encountered so far. The entirety of the world’s oceans were in the caress, thundering, calm, corrosive, sustaining; he encompassed all of that in his fragile elfin form. Sea life in all its myriad shapes, with its cleverness and dull-wittedness, inquisitive or reclusive, light-filled and shadowed, ran through him so that he was their life, and they were his. Temperature spread through his touch, from the heat of sunlight on the water to the great blocky ice floes that hid black water from the light for decades on end.

“You will see the lands as they are,” he said mournfully. “Not as they once were, but the ruin that they are now, for even I cannot bring them back to their glory. But you will walk among the ruins as though you walk through air, and you will touch them as if they are dry land raised from the waters. You will survive the drowning, Truthseeker, but only the Hundreds will tell whether you survive the trials. You have three days before the water takes you.”

He dropped his hands. Lara nearly fell as the surge of power retreated. She was left gaping after him as he returned to the depths without another word, and not until the silver road was empty again did she dare to ask, “Who was he?”

“That was Llyr,” Aerin whispered. “Father of the sea, and father of my people, for he is Rhiannon’s father, too.”

“That was …” Words fell away, leaving Lara staring down the silver-sheened road that led into the ocean. Llyr was gone, taken back by the water without a ripple, though the bay remained as it had been, stricken by a parting that went against the laws of nature. Lara’s chest was overfull, awe and astonishment poured into her until she couldn’t breathe. Her first impulse had been right: not Poseidon, perhaps, but surely the same elemental power by another name. She still felt his thumbprint against her forehead. The power sweeping from it heralded changes in her body, changes wrought by the will of a creature so far beyond mortal, even so far beyond immortal, that she had only one name for it.

“That was a god,” she finally managed, though it was still half a question. “An actual, honest-to-God … god.” Truth rang through it, expanding what she thought she knew into new spaces. She had faith in her God, singular or triumvirate, but His words came back to her: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me . She had always thought that meant other gods were false, and so not to be worshipped. Not once had she considered it could lend credence to their existence, and was meant to establish a hierarchy of belief.

Aerin said, “I told you ours walked the land with us,” though the acerbic note Lara expected was missing. “But Llyr is one of the old gods, and it has been long on long since he’s been seen. My grandmother would not remember the last time an old one spoke to us. Who are you,” she added more falteringly. “What are you, Truthseeker, that you bring back our ancient gods and shake the order of our world?”