In Thy Name

Chapter 6 - Memory

She was less than a decade old, swimming in the hole behind Kolsung Tunttur, and her feet became tangled in the weeds, a slimy net that only tightened with every effort to free herself. Muck-darkened water surrounded her; far above, shadows glided across a distant light, that shrank and dimmed as the gloom closed in behind her eyes...

She was someone? And she had been young, gone swimming? The shred of memory gave her strength; she kicked against the darkness, toward the faraway light. Echoes of a voice stirred the murk, calling to her, cutting through the ensnaring web. Knowledge sliced the bonds like a knife-Seiya, Selengged, Tainian. She stroked toward the surface, and plunged, gasping, into consciousness.

Pain crept around the edges of her senses, a dull ache everywhere. Her eyes watered as she tried to open them against the harsh light; she gave up and closed them again. A voice tickled her hearing, a very familiar voice. "Kuya," she murmured. "Sister," the voice replied, and a cool hand lifted hers off the hard rock where she lay. She felt his care like a tender blanket over the ache inside her, the jagged hole where something had been ripped away. And another, hovering nearby, an anxiously flickering flame. Something about it was familiar, and memories filtered back. A wall of flame, her being consumed in fire-she winced at the memory-and then the scrawny desert-dweller... No, he was no desert-dweller; he was a mage. "Why is he here?" Her voice scratched in her throat.

"He is a friend of the Forest-Born Decadarchos," Kuya said softly. "He saved your life-several times."

Selengged searched her memory, but it was sluggish. The most recent things she found were the sun's heat dragging at her dark cape and weighty chainmail, her throat burning with thirst, her legs heavy, mired in the sand, and then the sand rushing up at her. "From the desert?"

"No...yes...no. A lot of things have happened..."

Selengged sighed. She wanted to just lay there and let her memories gather, let them weave together into a coherent tale of why she was here-here, lying on hard rock, with a numerin's blanket over her rather than the press of her chainmail, with only two other warm bodies nearby, and her soulsword-her sword... She groped for it, the extension of her body, filled with her heartbeat and her breath; but it was nowhere. Not near, not far. She was entirely contained in her body. No, that was not true. She was her body, and she was also more. The sword, the road to the sky, was gone, and now she was the sky. The enormity of it almost drowned her, almost sucked her back into its starless dark, except that Kuya's voice came again, forming her body again around the sense of hearing, her soul taking shape in harmony with his.

"Sister?" he said, and she felt the pinch of his worry.

"Brother," she said, willing down her disquiet to reassure him. "I am all right."

He gave a breath of a laugh. "Yes," he said, "You will be," trying to convince himself. "But now, you need to drink. Slowly..."

Selengged eased her eyes open; the light had been dimmed to a soft gold. Kuya's face floated in her vision, smiling though his eyes were still worried. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and lifted her to a sitting position. Rocks flowed around her, punctuated by strange pale shapes. As she focused on them, she saw they were parts of a person-dirt-streaked pants, wrappings of strips of cloth, scraps of sleeves-connected by parts that blended into the desert rock-dark gloves, a deep red wrap thrown around thin shoulders, a desert-gold face, a gleaming tangle of curls. The mage. She was not sure whether to be angry or grateful; she could not remember what he had been doing out there on the sands. He crouched behind Kuya, a hard knot of hostility that grated on her mind and burned in his eyes.

Who was he? Why was he here?

"First, water," the mage said in susurrant Sev-Halla, handing Kuya a canteen. He lifted it to her lips, and she worked to take a sip. The water stung her parched tongue and throat; she yearned to wash away the pain, and reached for the canteen.