Robin McKinley - Water

A thread of understanding wound itself into her mind. Or perhaps it was in the Kraken’s mind, and she was there too, because the thread seemed to glimmer in the darkness like the thoughts she had seen racing to and fro across the Kraken’s huge mass in the darkness beyond the limit. Once again she heard the voiceless command, Go.

She withdrew, and the darkness released her.

She was floating in her father’ private room, staring at the Kraken’s gift, while that luminous thread found its place and meaning in her mind.

“I don’t think it was me the Kraken wanted,” she said slowly. “It wasn’t the airfolk either, really. Not for themselves, I mean. It was the moment. Just before they jumped. It was . . . I don’t know. . . . They were going to die, so they took their whole lives, everything before and after, and pressed all of it into that one moment together. I saw it. I felt it. I shan’t ever forget it. And the Kraken, all that way below . . . even right down there, the Kraken felt it too, and wanted it . . .

“I suppose it’s a bit like the jewels. Jewels are about light, aren’t they? It’s what they do with light that makes them what they are. And that’s why it wanted the moment—everything it could have of it—the airfolk—what I’d seen—to tell it about life. Our kind of life, merfolk and airfolk.”

“Why should it want these things? And what gives it the right to destroy our mountain for a whim, because it has been prevented from adding some bright little object to its collection?”

“I don’t think it’s like that. Whims, I mean. I think it needed the moment. It had been waiting for something like that since . . . since . . .

“It’s because we belong in the light, us and the airfolk. And that moment . . . it was so full of light—I’ll never see anything like it again all my life. Not just sunlight and glitter . . . it was them, the way they loved each other . . . everything shone with it. . . . That’s what the Kraken wanted . . . needed . . .

“The Kraken isn’t going to die, you know. But when the sun goes cold and there’s no light left, it will have the whole world, not just the bottom of the sea. But the moment will still be there, with all the other things it’s collected ever since time began, waiting to be born again when light comes back. That’s why it needs them. . . . Yes, because it’s our . . . our dark guardian . . .

“And I don’t think it gave me this . . .”

She touched the black jewel.

“. . . just to say thank you, just to be nice to me. It gave it to me because it thought we needed it. So that we can begin to understand its darkness. How other it is.”

“You keep using that word. You don’t just mean that it’s very different from us?”

“No, that isn’t the point. It’s more than different. It’s opposite.”

“Well, I suppose you could say we need some inkling of our opposite in order to understand ourselves.”

No, she thought. It was so much more than that, but he couldn’t imagine it. How could he? Anyway, it didn’t matter. She put the jewel down, and he nodded, closing the subject.

“Now,” he said. “I want you to explain why you cut school yesterday.”

“Because it was my last chance. From now on I’m not going to be able to do that sort of thing anymore. I’ll have to do whatever I’m supposed to do because I’m your daughter. I won’t be able to cut things. Nobody can make me do them, not even you. But I’ll make myself.”

“Dominie Paracan was hurt by your absence on your last day. It must have seemed like a deliberate slap in the face to him.”

“Yes.”

“You mean it was indeed deliberate.”

“Dominie Paracan has never treated me fairly.”

“He was instructed to deal with you rather more strictly than his other pupils.”

“I guessed that. But it was never just strictly. I was always being punished for things I didn’t deserve. He enjoyed setting traps for me in order to punish me. That’s why I used to play truant. If I was going to be punished, I might as well deserve it.”

He sighed. Ailsa had noticed that now, when he was alone with her, he didn’t feel the need to keep his usual mask of calm in place.

“That is the trouble with power,” he said. “It is the opposite of this jewel. It brings out the dark in you. Why didn’t you tell me when he sent you to me for punishment?”

“How could I come whining to you? I don’t want you to anything about it now, either. It’s over, and he’s a good teacher.”

He nodded, approving. She caught his sidelong glance of amusement.

“Well, since you have not come whining to me now,” he said, “I suppose I must deal this last time with your disobedience.”

“A week confined to my rooms on punishment fare?”

He laughed.

“As last time?” he said. “That will start to-morrow morning, but you will have to leave your rooms to report on to-day’s events to the Council. The Council will then declare a public holiday, as part of which I will remit a week’s punishment for all offenders. This will happen to include you. To-morrow afternoon we will hunt, and I’m afraid that will be the extent of your holidays, because from now on you had better take your place at the Council, and sit in on as many committees as you can so that you can learn their work. I must warn you that most of our meetings are a lot more boring than the one you attended yesterday.

“Now you’d better get to bed. No. Leave the jewel with me. You’ll be needing a new diadem.”

“What will happen to the airfolk?”

“All we can do is somehow return them to their element.”

They dreamed of sunlight and of leaves, and woke to the lap of wavelets on sand. They sat up and looked at each other, bewildered. She wore her marriage dress still, but every jewel upon it, down to the last tiny seed pearl, was gone. So was his armour, though his sword belt was across his shoulder and round his waist, with the sword in its scabbard. Their hair and garments were wet, and their flesh was pale and wrinkled, showing that they had been long in water. They felt sore around their chests, as if they had been bound around with ropes beneath the arms. Deep chill lingered in their bodies, that now seemed to drink hungrily at the morning sun.

They looked around. They were on a silvery beach, with blue sky overhead and a rippling blue sea before them. Behind rose heavy green woods, full of shadow. They had been lying upon two wooden sleds made from old sea-worn timbers and lashed at the joins with ropes twisted from an unfamiliar coarse fibre. The runners of the sleds touched the highest mark left by the receding tide, and the hummocked sand against the head timbers showed that they had been shoved rather than dragged up the beach. No footprints led inland, and the waves had washed out any marks that might have been left below high tide.

They helped each other to their feet and embraced. Dazed still, neither spoke. When they separated, the man eased his sword in its scabbard and settled it home. The woman pointed at what might be a path into the trees. They walked towards it, but when they were almost there, the woman, as if on an impulse, put her hand on his arm and stopped him. They turned.

“Our thanks,” she called to the blank reaches of ocean.

They turned again and disappeared into the trees.

Ailsa watched them go.

A POOL IN THE DESERT

There were no deserts in the Homeland. Perhaps that was why she dreamed of deserts.