II - Stoneship

Salt in the Wound

Branch woke that morning, as if for the first time in months, with a drizzle of rain on his face. He looked up for a long while into the thick-clouded sky, raindrops peppering his skin, basking in the sheer blank-minded peace of one just falling out of sleep. His hair was damp from the fresh water of the sky; he brushed it seal-sleek back from his face, knowing it would fall forward again without salt to plaster it there as it dried. That made him had to think, even a little, so he stretched out his bony brown body and sat up.

Here were the Rocks, and Branch looked about them with wide eyes, as if he had been on the brink of forgetting them during sleep, or as if he had slept somewhere far away and known the place where he slept was not the Rocks, only to awake to find himself among them. Upon the Rocks--the lighthouse, the steps spiraling up the biggest rock, the doors cut into it, the ship protruding from it. Familiar, yet not familiar. He turned round, crouched on his own rock like a crab, and breathed deep of the eternal ocean-smell.

The slim body with the shag of black hair curled on a nearby rock--familiar, all familiar. Emmit. Another body, a ripple beneath the waves, surfacing with a wash of skin and muscle like a flat-backed fish, then the broad shoulders keeling back into the water. Will.

Familiar, yet not familiar. Branch unfolded his long limbs and stretched to standing, feeling the odd, cool dampness on his skin, the chill of rain and fog unwarmed by sunlight. Clouds cast their gray shadows all over the Rocks, the water, even the golden wood of the ship. Strange. Not strange.

Branch dove casually into the salt water--it was colder than usual--and glided like a long brown arrow just under the surface towards Emmit's rock. Swimming, at least, was all familiar, as natural as walking, as breathing; the ocean embraced him. He pulled himself out of the water, spidered up the rock, touched Emmit's shoulder. Emmit uncurled onto his back and stretched so hard that he bent up like a bow, his fish-pale belly waving at the clouds. He looked at Branch upside-down, blinking.

Then he flipped over again, a strange urgency in his elfin face. Yes, Emmit, familiar. Something in his eyes--not.

"You're back," Emmit said, wonder in his voice, and they touched hands, and Branch smiled like they could touch souls as well, just like that. "Will!" Emmit shouted. The third boy came surging back through the water and clambered up on the rock as well, his bluish-gray beard sparkling with water even in the clouded light. Emmit gestured at him urgently. "Branch is back."

Days on the Rocks had always passed like liquid dreams for Branch and the other boys, sliding through themselves without any possibility for worry and uncertainty, until all troubles, even memories, became lost in the sheer peace of the ocean. So passed that one, though hitched, just a little, with words and much talk, until they all swum their separate ways, no longer wishing to discuss the matter. Branch, as was his habit, climbed sopping wet up the stairs to the telescope--a sure way to be alone, for Emmit came there but rarely, and nobody else at all, and a place to think on memories, as if the deceptive little tube of metal invoked them.

"You'd been different." So Emmit had said. "For a while--different. As if you weren't entirely there. Not the Branch you had been."

"Not speaking." Will. "Living in fog."

He shook his head to the memories, then shrugged, and looked down at the ship, his eyes following the familiar-not-familiar shape of it.

"Maybe I did go away," he said quietly to the empty air, for the boys of the Rocks did not worry about talking to themselves. "Maybe I got tired of the rain. I don't remember."

He peered into the telescope, squinting at the shifting pinkish-gray light until he made out the Rocks. Then he peered in the other end and got badly disoriented, and so drew back and started spinning it idly around.

Memories, from long ago, before anybody else had come to the Rocks, when the sun had shone clear and the sea had fallen limpid away from the bare stone, a life so simple that even words and names were struggles to find, luxuries to have, and not even necessary for happiness.

"Branch is like our spirit, isn't he?" Emmit said. Will nodded.

"I have the beard," Will said solemnly.

Branch backed away from the telescope and sat on one of the smooth, golden-brown wooden steps, running his thumb over the rough black rivet and laughing to himself, because Will had always had the beard, even when he was much younger.

"He's lucky Emmit didn't name him Fur-Face," Branch said, then smiled happily. "I'm back now. We can play again, even if it does rain."

Then he saw, far below him: a man in a golden shirt, a man in a black shirt, standing together in the prow of the landlocked ship. He cocked his head to one side, suddenly tense.

"Are they...why I went away?"

Branch unfolded himself and went down the steps, wondering. They were looking out at the Rocks--at Will, perhaps, where he clung contentedly to a far rock, tide-washed to his waist, sunning his beard below the clouds.

"Hello," Branch said. The man in the gold shirt startled and turned, and the other continued his watch, his thick dark hair ruffling in the sea breeze.

"Hello, Branch," said the stranger.

"Have you been away long?" Branch asked, curious.

"Lost track of time?" the other asked, mocking. Branch shrugged.

"The sun goes in and out. And I have not been myself for a while. As if I were dreaming all this time. But now I'm not." Branch reached out and touched the man's face, only faintly aware of his distaste. "Sirrus," he said softly, then looked at the other man. "Achenar, then."

Only then did Achenar turn, and Sirrus backed coldly away from Branch's hand.

"Emmit told me you took my cave?" Branch asked Achenar, who merely nodded, and Branch nodded that.

"I wasn't going to do anything without you here," Emmit said quietly. Though Sirrus startled, Branch did not; although he had not heard Emmit's silent bare feet on the deck of the ship, he was not frightened.

"It's all right," Branch said, and Sirrus surveyed him with narrowed eyes.

"He hasn't been away, Emmit."

"His mind has been away," said Emmit simply. "Branch was here, but no good at being Branch."

They were familiar; it surprised him.

"Have you been down there recently?" That was Will, also suddenly there, also silent in his walk.

"I don't know," said Branch. Achenar snorted.

"I think we could give you the tour later," Sirrus said archly. Emmit nodded. Branch tilted his head to one side as Sirrus and Achenar went down the familiar dark tunnel. More things to remember. Even awake, he didn't often consider the past, and so it was rusty from disuse.

"There were many other people."

"Many of them left when Sirrus and Achenar settled here, since the Rocks changed then, and they liked being somewhere else." Emmit looked to Will for confirmation. Branch's brow furrowed.

"They would swim off," Will added, "and sometimes come back."

"Maybe that's what changed," Branch said quietly. "The spirit of this place changed like a tide coming in as more and more people came, and when they all went away it was so different that I changed too."

"But you changed back," Emmit said proudly. It was his pride as well as Branch's at his recovery; the three of them shared everything.

"And found here changed forward," said Branch. "Do you think I should visit my cave?"

"I'd wondered why they were so passive," Achenar mused. "I'd see Emmit or Will swim off to ask Branch something, and come back without an answer. As if, missing him, they couldn't do anything except smile and nod and feed us and be so accursedly accepting and nice."

Sirrus was running his hands over the rich cloth in his drawers, mostly ignoring his brother.

"We're going to stop getting free breaks," Achenar added.

"Maybe, maybe not," said Sirrus distractedly. He'd pulled out another drawer and was weighing jewels in his hands, stroking them. "Branch doesn't seem angry with us."

Achenar giggled suddenly, and Sirrus winced with distaste.

"I should show him my room," Achenar said, scratching his beard and still giggling. "I should, I should, I should."

Sirrus rubbed at the dulled handle of one of the drawers until it took on its usual sheen.

"Just behave yourself, brother."

"Define

"Oh, get out. I'm settling in here, so go play with poison or whatever it is you do when you're alone."

"Dear little brother," said Achenar with a loud snort, "we have so much in common."

"Go!"

Achenar's blithe laughter and the way he just about waltzed out of the room ruined the effect of his obedience, and Sirrus held still for a long moment, seething.

"Well," he said to empty air, a commanding snap, as if evening out his temper required imagining a servant stood beside him, requiring him to keep the face and dignity of command.

At last he moved--dusting the globes in the corners, straightening the paintings by the door, sweeping his fingers absentmindedly through the holograph on his desk before perfectly aligning the candlesticks. Satisfied, he gave the elegant chamber one last check, then delicately raided the desk drawer and another in the dresser and leaned back comfortably on his bed with a string of pearls and two white pills to play with. His smile was small, lopsided, and glowing with simple pleasure.

"Finally some peace and quiet."

Achenar came up from Sirrus' just in time to see Branch coming out the other stone-set door to the other half of the look, squinting with light and puzzlement. The sky was darkening again; rain began to splatter on the deck. Branch turned slowly where he stood, noticed him, gave him a slow and incomprehensible stare.

"You already saw my room," Achenar said softly, not realizing that he was twisting the hem of his shirt in one hand, not realizing that Branch was trembling.

After a moment and without a word, Branch turned and dove right off the side of the ship, streaking away through the water. Achenar's eyes tracked the long brown form until he lost him in the sea, and a faint noise that might have been whining or laughter came from the back of his throat.

"I didn't get to show him my room." He took a few careless steps backwards, almost tripping over the side of the ship and falling in himself, then steadied himself, crossed to the other deck, and went down his own tunnel. "I didn't get to show him my room," he said again, his voice softening, lightening, creeping into falsetto. "I didn't get to show him..." He clattered down steps, one hand touching the wall from time to time, his fingernails scraping down the living rock.

Achenar thumbed the glowing button on the door, which opened with a hiss and a heavy clunk, and stepped into the wood-paneled gloom. "It's such a good room, too," he murmured, roaming about, checking the maps laid out in his drawers, thumbing the hologram on top of the chest back and forth. "A good room." He looked about at the antlers and masks mounted on the dark carved walls, then frowned, touching the bare panel over his well-used desk.

"I need a lamp," he muttered. "I really do."

Then his face twisted into an fierce grimace.

One of the bottles on his desk was missing.

Emmit was up at the telescope, spinning it round and round in circles for the sweet whistle and squeak of metal bearings, but only because he was thinking about Branch, with his eyes fixed on one point in the horizon and his mind fixed on one tremendous worry. The rain ran over his bare back and he did not think on it; though he remembered the days when the sun shone from morning to night, they were distant to him, and he was accustomed to rain.

Thunder cracked.

Emmit, startled out of thought, looked up sharply, his short hair plastered to the sides of his angular face, and saw lightning. The sight made him laugh a little with the fearful joy of one in a storm, and he peeked in the telescope to see the view wildly distorted by the water on the lens, and laughed at that as well.

Then he heard a pained shout from below, and knew the voice instantly.

"Branch!" he called back, and turned and ran without thinking down the long spiral of steps, almost losing his footing more than once on the rain-slicked wood--even as he ran, he searched for Branch, and saw him bobbing head and shoulders above the water. As soon as he knew it was safe, when he had reached the deep water, he dove right off the steps, arcing through the air and plunging into the water to rocket towards Branch. The tall boy was effortlessly keeping his head and shoulders out of the water with his powerful legs, yet his attention was focused on his hand, which he would wave in the water, then look at, whimpering with pain.

"What happened?" Emmit asked, surfacing and gathering Branch into his arms.

"Found something in Achenar's room--water-stuff in a red bottle--spilled it--" Branch gasped as he yanked his hand out of the water, his dark eyes clouded with pain. "Can't get it off of me--"

Emmit tightened his grip when he saw Branch's hand, and Branch kicked hard on instinct to keep both of them above water.

"Branch..." The skin on his hand was discolored as if eaten through, as if falling apart. Even his nails were corroded. Emmit hissed in wordless sympathy.

"It won't stop," Branch whimpered.

Emmit grabbed him under the arms and started swimming towards shore through the choppy water with all the strength in his slender body.

"We must get out of the water, Branch," he said firmly. "Atrus said we can't be in the water during a bad rain."

Branch floundered for a few moments, trying to protect his hand, then put his own strength into swimming, and the two boys, still holding each other, streaked to the ship under their combined power--as they had many times before, in play, under wide blue skies. They heard a large splash behind them as Will hurried to catch up. Together they helped Branch, still nursing his hand and whining with pain, clamber onto the deck of the ship.

Achenar was standing in the doorway of his cave, another bottle in his hand.

"I know what you took," he said, half petulant, half triumphant. Branch stared at him, his breath coming short with pain, and saw his eyes glint with something terrible. "Put this on it," he said.

Branch didn't move.

"Do it, you idiot, it'll take away the burn. I don't want to hurt you--"

A crack of thunder. Branch was sure he heard Achenar add "yet", and it sent a chill through his body that had nothing to do with the cold rain sheeting down his back. Achenar reached out and grabbed his arm, yanking him forward--Branch half screamed--and dashed the other liquid onto his hand.

The burning stopped.

Branch relaxed slowly--very slowly--as Achenar's face broke into a strange smile. He did not yet release his grip. Will and Emmit stared, frozen.

"Yet," Branch whispered, as though he understood everything.

Achenar broke into a fit of giggles, released Branch--sending him stumbling backwards--and scurried back down the stairs to his cave.

Branch stood there for a long moment, very still, and a deep fear for him began pooling within Emmit. Thunder cracked, sending sparks off the sea in the distance. Will pointed silently at the lighthouse.

Branch turned and, without a word, embraced Emmit. Will remained utterly still, hand raised, and after a few minutes Branch, looking over Emmit's head, finally noticed, and they crossed slowly to the other half of the ship, their bare feet slapping on the waterlogged deck. Will hurried around them and down the plank to the lighthouse; he was halfway up the ladder when they came in the door, the gray light playing games with the muscles on his back, and he shifted his shoulders and arched his head back to look at them, with his wet beard, before going on up the ladder.

The rain drummed on the lighthouse's metal roof and sheeted across the windows, distorting the view of the rocks and the rain-swept sea below. The thick glass left a bubble of stillness around the three soaked boys, and the windows began to steam. Will watched the rain, Emmit watched Branch, and Branch watched his hand. The pain, the eating, had stopped, yet the damage was not healed, and it still hurt to move his hand, and he wondered whether it would mark him forever. The silence in the midst of the storm stretched long, and it was Will who finally broke it.

"Where is the rest of the hungry water?"

Emmit perked up and looked questioningly at Branch, as if seconding Will.

"It fell into the sea," Branch said, and Emmit caught a glimpse of a terrible guilt and fear in his half-closed eyes. "I hope the rain will wash it away."

"It did not burn us while we were swimming," said Will comfortingly, moving a bit closer to the other two.

"Emmit..." Branch looked piercingly at him, and Emmit looked back with something like fear. "What have they done?" Will cocked his head, innocently curious, but Branch's leathery face was closed and weighted. "When I was gone, what did they do?"

Emmit did not answer for a long while, just closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I...let Sirrus have my cave because he asked for it, because we played together when we were both small and laughing all the time. Because I know he doesn't like sleeping outside. He isn't used to it. I let Achenar have your cave because I knew the same thing for you. It isn't the first time they've visited since they were small. Do you remember that? Earlier?"

"I remember..." Branch's eyes drifted closed for a moment as he searched his vague, dreamlike memories. "I remember they came back after a long time, suddenly tall and rough. I remember many of the people left, saying the Rocks weren't the same anymore, saying they didn't like the brothers. I remember thinking they were silly, knowing that the brothers were friends. After all, we knew them in their youth before most of the new people came. We knew their father."

Emmit nodded.

"More of them left recently." There was a dark look on his elfin face, and his thin body was shivering. "You didn't know why. Will didn't know why either. Because you spend so much time on the outer Rocks. You don't know much at all."

"I know," Will said simply. "I like it there."

"You didn't used to," Branch said.

"I do now," Will retorted, and Branch almost laughed--would have, if not for Emmit's grimness.

"But I know way too much," Emmit said, his voice low. "They left because they were afraid. So afraid. I should have been. They talked to me and I didn't understand, didn't understand what they meant when they spoke of the brothers." His voice was starting to shake, and Will and Branch watched him, their dread mutual now, though Will's face seemed incapable of gloom.

"But it's worse than that," said Branch, distantly, almost as if he remembered. Emmit nodded, then shut his eyes as if in pain.

"Not all of them left. But they aren't here anymore. They're dead. They killed them."

"Achenar...killed them," Branch said heavily, and at that a deep sorrow came over him, along with a sort of subliminal understanding, resignation. Will shook his head, as if he couldn't understand it, didn't want to understand it, but Branch sat stiff-backed and still, his hand cradled in his lamp, his face blank and his eyes dark.

Emmit dropped his gaze and drew his knees up to his chest. "He tried to kill me, but I ran away, swam away. I came later to Sirrus, begging him to protect me, and he said he would if I promised to serve him and not tell anybody. And now only you are left." He rocked back and forth on the lighthouse floor. "All the others are gone. Gone. I try to forget them, because I think I'll just fall over dead if I think about how many there were. He didn't kill all of them. But..."

Will let out a whimper, a keen of grief. Branch tried to breathe, and the effort shook him.

"Why are we still here?" Branch asked.

"Because...because...I try to make Sirrus be nice. I try, I try." Emmit looked up at them and they saw tears in his seal-dark eyes, and both came closer, close enough to touch. "You," Emmit said, touching Will, "spending all your time on the outer Rocks, so happy, timeless, so close to what we used to be that you didn't realize, couldn't realize, what was happening."

"I'm sorry," Will whispered.

"No. Don't be sorry. You didn't have to hide anything." Emmit touched Branch now. "And you, asleep. Our will was asleep." He shook his head. "As if your spirit knew the horror, even if your mind didn't and it drove you into a cloud." Emmit put his arms around both of them and clung tight, his body shaking with growing sobs. "Don't tell them," he whispered urgently. "Don't let them know that I told you anything, that you know anything more than you used to. Don't, please, or they'll kill you too."

Will keened again, his blue eyes clouded with confusion, and returned the embrace; Branch put his long, bony brown arms around both of them, though still so careful of his hand. Grim surety weighted upon him.

"Your spirit is larger than your body, Branch."

Emmit's words, long ago, high on the big rock as they watched the endless stars.

"It goes beyond what you think. It tells you things. I'm sure of it."

Branch closed his eyes and rested his face against Emmit's wet hair.

I cannot stay away from that room forever.

Soon after the rain let up, the boys left the lighthouse, and Sirrus and Achenar surfaced as well, blinking owlishly in the sunlight that shafted through the clouds. Emmit watched Branch walk in eerie calm down the plank towards them and shuddered. Will, trying very hard to be himself again, skipped the plank entirely by flopping into the water to swim lazily in the general direction of out.

"Emmit," Sirrus said sharply, and Branch saw sudden and terrible worry in his friend as he turned to answer. "I must speak with you--you and Will."

Will's head and shoulders bobbed out of the water at the sound of his name. Emmit looked over at him, and Will looked around nervously, then swam back to the ship, rippling in and out of the water.

"And me?" Branch asked, with a nagging suspicion of the answer.

"No. My dear brother has been itching to play tour guide ever since we got here."

Achenar shot a petulant glare at Sirrus, then a giddy grin at Branch.

"I've already been there," Branch said.

"But there are things I want to tell you about."

"Like the..." Branch gestured with his hand. "You push, you flip back and forth. A flower, another thing."

"Of course." Achenar's grin didn't fade as he led Branch away to the other door. Emmit looked after them, worry in his narrowed eyes, and Will looked questioningly at Emmit as Sirrus turned on his heel and gestured over his shoulder. Emmit followed him immediately, though every step was reluctant, and Will walked uneasy until he rested a hand on Emmit's shoulder, his fingers digging into the skin, as if he would have liked very much to cling.

The room had not changed, Branch noted, except for the bottles on the desk. Achenar, who'd entered before him, was leaning against the chest of drawers, his hand resting on the small device on top of it. At Branch's curious glance, he turned it on, the holograph forming right around his hand.

"I put my hand through it too," Branch said, noticing even as he spoke how his voice was louder than it would be in the open air, but the echoes that he'd once played games with in his cave were muted now by the heavy wood panels. "It's like a dream, but one everybody can see, not just one person."

"It's a hologram." Achenar toggled the switch casually back and forth, sending the image through the strange mutation of rose to skull and back again,. "It's made of light."

"The flower is like those strange things I see in the deeper waters near the ship, near the place Atrus made all glass. The water-flowers. And the other thing...it is bone. But not of a shape I know."

A strange glint in Achenar's eyes then, and he stepped forward to touch Branch's face.

"It's a human skull." His voice jumped into a high register, boyish, twisting around the words. "If I peeled away your face, scraped down to the bone, that's what I would find."

Their eyes met, and Branch flinched at what he saw.

"The skull means death," Achenar whispered hoarsely. "That's why it's on the bottle of poison you stole. Death." His eyes lit up as he spoke the word, a distorted smile pulling at his mouth. "The rose...the rose means love." He nearly spat the word. Branch's brow furrowed.

"Love and death, one becoming the other. Why?"

Achenar let go of Branch's face and started pacing about the room. Branch watched him, stock-still and wary.

"My brother has loved many women, fool that he is, and they never love him. They always hurt him. I don't have to worry about this, because I don't care about love, only death, but he does, because he's stupid." Branch tracked his pacing, turning slowly, listening. "But he's all caught up in them, every one his little Tisha. There was one, a princess of Aspermere, whom he took about with him for many months." He shrugged. "Maybe she did love him at first, I don't know. Charmed, maybe, by the toys he gave her, the flowers he wove in her hair. But by the time she was heavy with his child she could bear him no longer. She knew how to make holographs, of course, and so she sent him this. The rose, his gift to her--the skull, her gift to him."

"She tried to kill him?"

"Tried," Achenar said. "Right beneath the portrait he hung of her in Mechanical."

"Failed?"

Achenar flexed his meaty hands.

"Quite."

Branch shivered.

"Sirrus gave me the hologram afterwards. He couldn't bear to have it about, not after she'd attacked him, not after I'd dealt with her. And I'd kept it. A memento." A high giggle slipped into his speech. "I like keeping things from important people I kill."

Branch took a deep breath, his own memories intruding upon Achenar's that hung in the air.

"Branch, you've spent all this time playing with Achenar. You two seem so alike at times. You have the same air, maybe that's it."

Atrus, on the rocks, when Branch, even tall for his age, barely came to his shoulder, and Achenar was shorter yet.

When did the streams split, then?

Branch shook his head. Achenar stared at him for a moment, then said, very quietly, "And what were you thinking that made you do that?"

That brought Branch back to the present, very sharply, and he nearly shouted aloud.

He knows me as well as Emmit does. Were we really that alike--are we still, that he knows me?

Branch and Achenar looked at each other for a long time.

Abiding, insane malignance in Achenar's eyes.

Branch nodded.

"I know," he said, then turned and left.

"This is the dream," Achenar said, just before the door closed behind Branch. "The pleasant dream." His voice went high again, the sound making Branch twitch. "Soon you will wake."

Sirrus had pulled out the chair from his desk and was sitting in it with an odd mixture of decadent relaxation and outright imperiousness. He'd given Will and Emmit the two chairs flanking the door; they sat stiffly, Emmit to Sirrus' right, Will to his left, their backs plastered against the slats and their eyes very uncertain.

"You will stay here until I dismiss you," Sirrus said flatly. Will wondered how he could state it so certainly, as if he knew everything; Emmit just swallowed and stared at the wall, his hope fading.

"Why is Will here?" he dared to ask at last.

"Because I want him to be," said Sirrus. Will shifted uncomfortably. After a long pause, Sirrus continued. "Some things have changed since my brother and I were here last. You're suspicious of something. I can see it in the looks you pass between yourselves. Conspiratorial. Particularly Branch." Sirrus glared at Emmit, his green eyes narrowed unpleasantly, and Emmit knew it was no use at all explaining that Branch had only just woken up, that the new looks were because there was a new person to look at. "What did you tell them?"

Will looked at Emmit, wide-eyed.

"Words," Emmit said quietly. Sirrus and jumped to his feet, anger lining his face.

"Zihth boogihn! I told you a long time ago that there were certain things that had to stay in that damn-fool head of yours. What did you tell them?"

Will shrank in his chair. Emmit didn't dare say anything.

"Answer me," Sirrus said, his voice low--and that was more frightening than his shouting. Silence. "Answer me, Emmit." Still silence; Emmit tried to keep his face black, meaningless. Sirrus hid feelings as well--hid his frustration behind a lopsided smile. "Well then." And his gaze raked across the wall to the other chair.

"Will," Sirrus said, almost genially. "Do you remember Harrin? The red-haired man you followed about? The one who would always tell you stories?"

Will nodded mutely. Emmit watched, miserable and helpless.

"You haven't seen him in a while, have you?" Sirrus asked, his voice suave, plying. "Do you miss him?"

"A lot," Will said, his eyes darting nervously about.

"Do you know where he went?"

"A lot of people left," Will said uncertainly. "I thought he left with them."

"How would they leave? By swimming to other islands?"

"I suppose."

"I remember Harrin. He'd fallen, one day, after he came to the Rocks, and broken his leg. Even after it healed, he could barely even walk. Could he swim that far?"

Then Will saw the trap closing around him, and he could only freeze.

"Could he?" Sirrus asked sweetly.

A tiny, petrified shake in Will's head.

"Then where is he?" Sirrus asked.

"Dea--" Will stopped himself, too late. "Emmit said..." He couldn't help looking desperately at Emmit, desperately, asking leave for a betrayal he'd been forced to make.

I forgive you, Will, I forgive you, Emmit wanted to say, but didn't dare, not with Sirrus there. It's not your fault, it's Sirrus, turning your nature into a weakness. I just wish I could--

"Emmit," Sirrus said darkly. Will cringed. Emmit remained still, blank, frozen, his hands clutching the glossy wood of the chair. "You did tell them, didn't you?"

Emmit didn't answer. He didn't have to. Sirrus already knew.

Sirrus looked back at Will for a moment.

"You wouldn't have figured that out by yourself, would you? You'd just have kept on playing on your rocks, taking everything at face value, ignoring the inconsistencies. Pretending death and my brother don't exist." Anger again. "Blind fool!" Then a suave smile as he sauntered a bit closer to Will. "Let me just tell you this, boy. You'll never win if you play like that. You'll never get ahead." The smile turned into a sneer. "Not that I care."

"I don't want to get ahead," Will whispered. Sirrus ignored him and returned his attention to Emmit.

"Now, what am I to do with you?"

Emmit's knuckles whitened, but he did not speak.

"You're usually so talkative, dear Emmit. So willing to give me advice, wanted or no. Any suggestions for your king now?"

"Sirrus," Emmit said faintly, "I am your friend."

Will watched Emmit with the blank terror of a drowning man. Sirrus drew a sharp breath.

"Emmit," he said, his voice clipped with anger, "do you even know what a king is?"

"Sirrus...you are my friend."

"Obviously you don't. A king, friend Emmit, is one who commands another, one who controls his subjects. It's the simplest thing in the world, really. I thought you able to grasp it."

"But nobody can do that," Will whispered. Sirrus turned slowly to look at him, and the look in his eyes made Will cringe in his chair.

"Idiot," he said softly. "Well. I think, Emmit, that for the sake of your friend, a demonstration is in order. A king--" Sirrus turned on his heel and marched over to the chest of drawers and yanked one of them open. "A king is one who can do this without worry, because it is his right!" He grabbed one of the long-stemmed glasses and flung it across the room.

Will shut his eyes tightly and curled into himself at the smash and tinkle of glass, at Emmit's hoarse cry.

Sirrus stood stock-still for a moment, staring at the blood running down the left side of Emmit's face where the shards had slashed into his flesh. A few shredded strands of dark hair drifted to the floor.

Will whimpered, not daring to look up.

"I am a king, Emmit," Sirrus said quietly. "I am your king."

"Please..." Will whispered.

"Quiet," Sirrus commanded, terribly calm. Will slid out of the chair onto his knees, curling up like an injured thing on the floor. Emmit still sat frozen, making no move to touch his injury, white with pain and keening a little, in the back of his throat, instead of crying out. Sirrus eventually came over, pulled out a large shard embedded in Emmit's cheek, and examined it lazily.

"It was good crystal," he said, after a long silence.

Emmit let out a high and wordless cry and stumbled to his feet; his chair fell with a loud clatter and Emmit ran out the door, vanishing into the gloom of the tunnel. A few minutes later there was a sharp cry and the sound of a body hitting steps, and after a few minutes more Achenar loomed in the doorway.

"You didn't kill him, did you?" Sirrus asked dismissively, still holding the bloodied crystal.

Achenar shrugged. "The fool just knocked himself down a few stairs running into me in the dark." He reached out to pluck the shard from Sirrus' hand and examined it slowly, then tasted the blood. He nodded in appreciation, then looked down at Will where he still huddled on the floor.

"He's behaving, I see."

"Out of fright," Sirrus said.

"What better way is there?"

Will rocked back and forth, his face starting to crumple into tears.

"Please..."

Emmit staggered out of Sirrus' cave, shaking with pain, trying to scrub the blood out of his eye. Shaking with shame, too, because he knew he'd betrayed Will--more than Will had ever betrayed him--and left him down there with the brothers, but he was too afraid, far too afraid, to go back. Memories crashed upon his turbulent thoughts--coming down the stairs one day, looking for Sirrus--

And there was Sirrus, sprawled limp against the cushions on the bed, his embroidered shirt pulled off and tossed to the floor. A needle resting in his flaccid hand, a mark in the crook of his left elbow. The way his jaw hung loosely, the way his eyes rolled back and didn't focus when he tried to look at Emmit--that stayed with Emmit, clear, forever.

"It started then," Emmit whispered, his voice hoarse with pain. "It started then."

"Emmit!"

The shout was from a nearby rock, and Emmit looked up to see Branch, sitting with his bony knees tucked up to his chest. Without thinking, Emmit dove into the water, but he surfaced all too soon with a shout of pain as the salt burned his open wound. Branch dove in to help him to the rock, paddling carefully so that Emmit stayed above water, and they did not speak until they slid, gasping, out of the sea.

"What happened?"

Emmit shuddered with cold and pain.

"Sirrus."

A few long minutes later, Sirrus himself came out of the cave, his features creased into a deep and imperious frown.

"Emmit! Emmit, come back here now."

Emmit was huddled on a rock, bruises starting to form on his limbs from his fall, and talking in a low, shaking voice, and Branch was crouched beside him, carefully licking out the wounds on his face, sometimes pausing to pick out more glass and toss it into the waves.

"Savages," Sirrus muttered under his breath. "Bah-ro." Then, louder, "Emmit! Now!"

"No," Emmit whimpered, and Branch shook his head.

"Stay here, Emmit," he said in a tight whisper. "I know that I will go."

"But--"

"Emmit, you said once that my spirit is larger than my body. That it tells me things. Right now, because of it, I know exactly what to do. It will be all right."

"Branch..." Emmit touched him, reverently.

"Go with all the blessings of the ocean."

"Branch, will I see you again?"

But Branch had already left the rock in a great leap and a shallow dive and was splashing like a playful fish towards the ship. Emmit stared after him, his normally bright eyes dull with shock, and then gave a wail of sorrow and hid his face behind his arm.

"Must I be the last?" he whispered, choking, to the empty ocean.

"Where's Will?" Branch asked as soon as he'd hoisted himself onto the deck. For a moment, Sirrus said nothing, just sneered at him and the blood on his mouth--his and Emmit's, for the glass had cut his lips.

"Does it taste good?" Sirrus asked, scorn dripping from his voice.

"It tastes like pain. No. Did it feel good, what you did to them?"

"Yes." A smug grin spread across Sirrus' face. "Will is in Achenar's room."

Branch, not in the least surprised, just looked Sirrus long and steady in the eye.

"If you could see into other people's hearts as I do," he said at last, "you would see no need to control anything."

Taken aback, Sirrus fumbled for words. "The only treasure to be found in a savage like you is control," he spat out at last.

"I pity you," said Branch, and then he turned and left for Achenar's room, leaving Sirrus sputtering in the prow of the ship.

Branch took the steps down slowly with one hand upon the wall, savoring the feel of the familiar stone, and feeling a deep and eerie calm and resolve settling upon him. There was nothing to be done but what he was doing. Nothing to do but speak to Achenar.

A memory surfaced from the depths of his mind--Achenar, not a child, not as old as now--Achenar at some time--glaring at him, something twisted in his eyes, an anger that Branch hadn't recognized--

Branch's eyes widened in the gloom.

"It started then," he whispered. "I fell asleep, living waking sleep, then. That's why my memory is like clouds over the sun." He stopped on a landing and rubbed the back of his skull.

"Achenar," he whispered at last, and went on down the stairs, understanding some, a little, more. He paused for a moment--just a moment--before the heavy metal door, with the yellow light of the button pulsing in the darkness before him. He was not entirely calm, though he wanted to be; he could hear his heart thumping within his chest.

Resignation, bone-deep and terrible, propelled him, so he pressed the button and the door jerked open. He stepped through before he could think, then stopped, horrified. Will was there, yes--

Will was kneeling on the desk, his arms spread wide against the wall and pinned there with knives through his wrists. His head hung on his chest, and he breathed, but didn't move. The blood that had ran down his forearms was half-dried, dark even in the dim light.

Branch felt his stomach trying to turn inside out.

And there was Achenar, standing against the wall, facing the door in expectation. There was a long heavy knife in his hand, and a sickening smile on his face, and then he pushed a little panel that clicked that clicked.

The door slammed close, and Branch could hear a whirring of pumps, a rushing of water.

"The hall is flooded," Achenar said, very quietly. "I have an extra switch down here, just for this cave. You're not leaving."

"I knew I wasn't going to leave," Branch said, his voice just as quiet as Achenar's, but far calmer.

"Why did you come?" Will asked, his voice small and broken.

"Because I had to."

"Stupid," said Achenar, with a squeak of a giggle. "You should have run away."

Branch did not reply, but padded a little further into the room, his bare feet silent on the dark wood. Achenar raised the knife a little, running his thumb along the blade, and his wide face distorted with glee.

"Well, Sirrus said--Sirrus, my dear brother, wonderful brother--" He had to stop for a moment, his pitiful ironic laughter overwhelming his words. "He said that since Will gave into him, I shouldn't hurt him."

"You betrayed that," Branch said, trying not to look at the knives impaling Will's arms, slid with delicate and terrible care between the two bones below his wrist. Achenar broke into giggles.

"No, no no no no I haven't. Well, only a little. He'll die quickly enough. But you--you didn't submit. You didn't please the little greedy golden man, my little brother, your little king. He said I could kill you."

Will closed his eyes, and Branch saw tears on his face. Achenar's giggles were coming in spurts, like panting.

"Any way I want," Achenar said. "Any way..." He lost his words in his laughter.

Branch did not say anything for a few moments, until Achenar's laughter died down and there was deep, subterranean silence, except for Will's panting breaths, his whimpers of pain and despair.

"When you first came to Stoneship," Branch said at last, his voice calm and flowing like water, "you spent the whole day looking at the fishes. Your brother wandered about, a little bored, not wanting to swim with us. Your father was working on the telescope, and your mother talked with me for a while, and then Will, and I wandered off." Will raised his head slowly, the wonder in his eyes shining through the pain. "Do you remember me finding you, where you crouched by the water watching the fish streak about underneath? You would barely have come up to my waist, and your eyes were very wide. Do you remember talking with me? Do you remember when I told you my name, and your wonder when I said that Emmit had given it to me? Do you remember when I dove into the water to catch fish to show your their rainbow scales, how I'd hold them just underneath so they could breath as you stared? How they lay quiet in my hands, because I was part of them?" Branch glanced over at Will then; their eyes met, and for a moment Branch saw the old simple joy of Will, the peace of him. Then he looked back at Achenar, at the confusion, the vague recognition in the mad eyes. "Do you remember?"

Achenar shook his head with a hoarse noise. "What does it matter?" he barked. "It's over. It doesn't matter. This matters." He was holding the knife out, the point aimed right at Branch.

"It's done, then," Branch said quietly, and his face relaxed into an expression of pure peace.

Then, without warning, he bounded towards Achenar, his arms spread wide as if in embrace, and flung himself onto the brandished blade, forcing it deep into his chest.

"Branch!" Will's hoarse scream of his name blocked out Branch's softer, expectant, cry of pain.

"No--don't you--" Achenar gibbered with surprise, then found himself bearing Branch's bony weight as the taller man staggered, his knees giving out, the pain battering at his mind.

Branch tried to blink his way through the gathering blackness of shock, and for a moment caught a glimpse of Will--his momentary nostalgia gone, replaced by a stricken, hollow stare--before he slipped into unconsciousness.

Branch was slowly wakened by an incomprehensible murmur of voices, one high and jumpy, one low and exhausted. There was a tough, springy mattress underneath him. His entire chest was a mass of pain. The wood paneling blurred before his eyes.

"I thought you weren't all dead."

Branch groaned. Achenar came over and stood by the bed, looking down at Branch's weak form, at the blood soaking into the dusty linen sheet.

"You must have blacked out from the pain," said Achenar, his voice strangely steady. "I was wondering if you'd ever wake up."

"I'm going to die, Achenar," Branch said weakly.

"I haven't lost yet," Achenar said. "You die, you leave behind Emmit and Will."

Branch shivered with guilt and worry. Emmit he couldn't help, not anymore. And Will--even Will was far away.

"Well, as long as you're not dead," Achenar said, his voice sliding back to the insane treble again, "you can still feel pain. Want to watch, Will?"

Will screwed his eyes shut against tears.

"Please..."

"There is no please," Achenar said harshly. "None. None at all."

Branch felt a deep surging of panic, but then let it go, let himself fall back into the terrible peace of resignation. All he had were words now; his world became words. "One scale might be silver in the sun," he murmured, letting his head roll to the side, "and the next pink."

"He's just delirious," Achenar muttered, reaching for his knife.

"The sun sends sparkles along the surface of the sea. The fish are like arrows underneath it, shadows of light."

"I should cut your tongue out."

"I'm not afraid, Achenar. The water laps against the side of the ship. I know what you want, and I'm not going to give it to you. In one of the deeper inlets the sea creatures grow on the rocks, making them so beautiful that your father built a room just to watch them. The compass reflects on the glass. The father is trying to teach the boy to swim. He is afraid of the water, but he wants to follow the fish. His mother sits on the rocks, drawing pieces of the world into a brown book. One of the fish has eyes that glow in the deep. It looks like a piece of starry night in the water. Boys dive after it, curious."

Achenar's eyes glazed over. He did see it, he remembered it so clearly. He'd come close to the fish, though not as close as the Stoneship boys--he was not as good a swimmer. But then Branch had chased it up for him, and he'd watch it swim about, making mouths and wavering its cloudy fins, for as long as he could manage before surfacing to breathe. Once his mother had dived in after him, worried he would drown. He'd come up laughing so hard at her concern that she had to laugh too, her heavy dark braids soaked and slapping against her face. The seaweed was dancing in Emmit's wake as he streaked about like an eel.

"The spirit is joy," Branch whispered, looking over at the wall with his eyes focused at some time in the distant past. "Joy, joy, joy. My spirit is that spirit. It's larger than me. Joy." Branch gave a long, shuddering sigh of pain.

"You're not supposed to be like this. What do you want?" The corner of Achenar's mouth jerked down in a strange grimace. Branch looked at him, his eyes calm and determined.

"Let Will go."

Achenar was utterly still for a moment--even his deep eyes empty--and then he turned, cocked his wrist, and sent the knife flying across the room. It sliced through Will's beard and deep into his throat, killing him in an instant with a little rattle of escaped air.

Silence, even from Achenar, and Branch's vision darkened with pain and blurred with tears, so he closed his eyes, knowing from the warm trickle on his lip that he was bleeding from his nose. Death was close, so close, as if he was swimming down to the deep ocean. Following Will, already thrown into the deep peace of the dark water.

Achenar looked back at him, his mocking smile growing uncertainly.

"I did let him go."

But the smile faded at the lack of horror and shock on Branch's face.

"I knew..." His voice trailed off; he had to struggle for breath. "Knew you'd do that." Branch's body shook with a rattling cough that left blood on his lips, and after that his voice was very faint. "Thank you."

Achenar was very still, utterly taken aback. There was the patter of blood dropping to wood behind him; he didn't turn around to watch it as he might have. For a moment he couldn't see Branch's ribs moving; then there was a sudden shudder of breath.

"Don't die!" Achenar hissed suddenly. "You can't--you're not supposed to--please--"

Branch's head slid to one side and his deep brown eyes closed.

"No," Achenar murmured. "You died. You died anyway." He drew back and dropped to the floor, curling into himself with a petulant whine. "I didn't get to play." Achenar rocked back and forth, rubbing his bloody hands over his face. "I didn't get to play."

The sun was coming close to the horizon, sending washes of light through the clearing sky, turning the sea beneath it into liquid gold. The clouds would roll in again tomorrow; they were already gathering in the east. But for the moment the sky stretched clear fading blue above, as it had when Emmit had first come to the rocks and splashed about under the endless light.

Now Emmit sat by the telescope, staring blankly towards the horizon. On any other day he'd have reveled in the rare beauty of a clear sunset, splashed in and out of the water, watched everything turn golden as he dipped his head just beneath the surface and looked towards the colorful sky. On any other day he would have been so happy.

But he knew, not for a fact but deep in his heart, that Branch and Will were dead. That they had died far beneath in the hollowed-out stone. His imagination made chimeras of their tormented spirits floating through the rocks. Cursing him for failing them. For not telling them sooner, so they could have all swum far, far away, and never seen the brothers again.

The sky was empty to him, its beauty meaningless. His chest felt hollow; his grief was too great to cry. And he felt doomed, so sure of his own death.

"Now I understand, Branch," he whispered. "The look in your eyes--"

Branch's eyes were dead.

Emmit shook his head and buried his face in the crook of his arm, empty of all but grief.

"Emmit!"

For a moment, he thought it might be Branch and Will, coming up from the depths, saved by some fate he could not have imagined. But it was Sirrus, calling sharply from the deck of the ship below.

Slowly, Emmit stood. The wind was picking up now, sending tiny golden clouds scudding across the sky.

"Come down here!" Sirrus snapped, striding to the base of the stairs. The sunset sent his gold-embroidered shirt coruscating with endless light; neither of them noticed.

"No!" Emmit shouted into the wind.

"Idiot! How long will you continue to resist me?"

Emmit didn't answer, didn't move, just stared out at the sea. Sirrus came a few more steps up the stairs.

"You are my servant, you fool. My slave. If you won't obey I'll just have to teach you, make you do what you're meant to."

"No," Emmit said, more quietly, but with utter determination. The wind nearly knocked Sirrus off his feet; lithe little Emmit swayed with it, enduring it easily. "I am not yours, king." He spat the word into the wind with sheer hatred, then shook with that which he had never felt before. Sirrus steadied himself on the rock wall and ventured further up.

Without word or warning Emmit spun and ran down the narrow spiral of steps with reckless speed. Sirrus stiffened, ready to grab him as he spun down towards him, but he never had the chance.

Emmit left the Rocks with a great flying leap from high on the stairs, and for a moment his slender body seemed to hang in midair, arched like a fish against the hollow golden wash of the sun, until he plunged down into the ocean and was gone.

"Emmit!" Sirrus reached for him as if to draw him back by sheer will. "Get back here!"

Emmit's bare back broke the surface of the ocean, but he was already too far out for Sirrus to swim, and he was streaking fast away into the sunset with lifelong skill and desperate speed.

"Emmit!" Sirrus let his arm drop to his side, burning with rage and humiliation. He could scream a hundred names, offer a hundred pleas, but Emmit would not come back. He watched the little figure thrashing towards the horizon with narrowed eyes and curled lip, and, after a long while, turned and went back down the stairs, back down to his room, to lean against the fresco and whimper with defeat.

Emmit passed out into the wide open ocean, the Rocks already dwindling behind him, and remembered how he had first come, breasting the sea for days and nights with nothing but water for as far as he could sea. But his journey to the Rocks had been buoyed by joy; now he swam heavy-limbed and broken towards the distant light.