Chương 35

Mystery is a lock on the world. Curiosity is the key.

"And just how do you propose going about that?"

"Simple." Harker spread his arms.

"I need you to show me your tributaries." Stillwater didn't laugh. He guffawed.

"That—that is rich. Funniest thing I've heard in a century."

"I'm not joking."

"You better be!" Stillwater snapped, ears quivering. He closed his yellow eyes and breathed, calming himself.

"I can't help you with this, and they won't do any good besides."

"I'll be the judge of that. Simply allow me to inspect them, and—""They won't work for you."

"How do you know?"

"Eidhrin tributaries aren't for humans or anyone else. You could study them for years and do nothin' with them. You need another human."

"I don't have one." Stillwater flicked a finger back where they'd come.

"Ask the girl."

"She won't share with me."

"You think so? After that little exchange of yours?" The Gilken adjusted his suspenders, a chuckle in his throat.

"That missive from the Spires bent your Bargain, and now your balances are tipped. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel—?" Harker started to ask, but Stillwater was right. There was a tension between Harker and Adhira, similar to when the Gilken tried to command him. It wasn't as active as that sensation, but it was there, pressing against his Stature.

"You two made a Bargain. She didn't violate it, not truly, but she feels like she did. Sometimes that's enough." Stillwater made a fist.

"Squeeze her for what she's worth." Harker glanced back through the trees toward her.

"I don't think it's time for that."

"What a soft touch. Still doesn't change the fact that you can't use me as a template." Harker folded his arms.

"Tell me why." Stillwater ran his claws over his face.

"GUGH. Human. We don't work like you soft, squishy things and our tributaries reflect that. You understand? Tides, they don't even carry Water!"

"What else could they possibly carry?" The Gilken licked his lips, eyes darting to the side.

"Hmm. Perhaps…" Harker felt it too. A slight tingle to their connection. A tension. The Bargain was responding to their conversation.

"Dangerous. But—" Stillwater hopped off his stump.

"Fine. You want to see my tributaries? We can do that. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Consider me sufficiently warned. I'm only going to look."

"Lookin' has caused plenty of problems in the past." He adjusted his cuffs.

"Tides, I don't even know if this will help you in the slightest, but the sooner I'm out of our Bargain, the better." Harker rolled his eyes.

"You aren't enjoying our time together?"

"As entertainin' as watching you fumble through the dark is, I've things to accomplish that don't include handholdin' a child on his way to school." Harker set his pack down and sat on the stump, planting his feet before putting his hands on his knees. Bracing himself always made this easier.

"Ready?" Stillwater rolled a rock over the size of his head and sat on it, close enough to touch.

"You need a bath."

"Shut up." He put his left hand onto Stillwater's chest, atop his necktie.

"Sovereign Sight." Harker's awareness skewered through Stillwater, and instantly he felt resistance. Similar to the Aberrant and Adhira, this was stronger by an order of magnitude; a steel vault compared to a stone wall. Yet no sooner did his awareness touch it than it opened. Stillwater let him in. All at once, Harker was surrounded by chaos. Scale, skin, fat, and muscle rippled through his senses, each one a distinct experience so similar to a human body.

Even his skeleton spread in a familiar pattern, ribs and spin and pelvis in the places he'd expected. Yet despite all of that, something was off. Harker tasted the Sea. Brine filled him, the bitter breath of waves fallen from on high, and the gritty remains of salt on his skin. The Eidhrin rolled across Harker's senses, as chaotic as the Sea itself, and nowhere showed that more than the curl of his tributaries. They wove through everything, so thin as to be invisible at first.

Soon they thickened, their black lengths studded with cruel thorns and upsetting bends into organs, bone, and muscle alike. If Harker's tributary was a broken sluice, then Stillwater's was a thicket of thorns, too gnarled and twisted to ever by of use.

"Last horizon…" Harker gasped.

"What am I looking at here?"

"That Talent of yours is something else." Stillwater's echoing voice almost sounded impressed.

"You're seeing my guts, I imagine."

"It's tangled with thorns."

"Not thorns. Tributaries."

"That's—how can anything move through these?" Harker traced them as he angled his awareness. The blackened barbs split into ever finer segments until the edges looked studded with hairs instead of thorns. Those sunk deep into every inch of his flesh, even his blood vessels. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. How can he move with them tangling every bit of his body?

The thorned vines vibrated too, shifting ever so slightly as something definitely moved through them. Harker couldn't identify it. The taste and sound and feel wasn't like Water at all. The Sea, so present in the rest of the Eidhrin, was entirely absent within those dark channels. He rose from Stillwater's flesh, reining in his Talent before fixing a hard stare at the Gilken.

"What do the Eidhrin move through their tributaries?"

"Stature, obviously."

"How?" Hawker pressed a hand against his own chest.

"Mine is like hardened leather."

"I don't know how it works for humans. You lot aren't capable of usin' it. One lie and it starts to shatter, and normal folk lie with every other breath." Stillwater eyed him.

"You sure you don't have Gilken blood?"

"Quite." Harker didn't know his parents, but he was fairly certain something as dramatic as being part Eidhrin would be obvious.

"Now, explain."

"It's simple," the little creature said.

"Stature moves through us like Water does for you."

"It becomes liquid?"

"Black Depths, you're too curious." Stillwater sighed.

"Can you explain how you feel through your fingers or how your blood works?"

"Yes."

"Oh." The Gilken folded his arms.

"Well, I can't. It just does." Annoyed, Harker abandoned his line of questioning. Instead, he began examining Stillwater once more. Starting with his head, he swept down his body methodically, and even when he found his reservoir Harker kept going. Once he'd reached Stillwater's feet, he returned to his chest, having a better grasp of the creature's general layout. It's all over the place. He returned to the reservoir. Even here is so incredibly bound.

Like a human, Stillwater's reservoir was located at the center of his chest, just below his sternum. Unlike any human, however, it was completely covered in thorned tributaries. They surrounded it so completely that Harker had to press his awareness through them just to get a glimpse of the organ at the center. It was a spiral of horn, or perhaps shell, tightly bound to a thousand thorns that wriggled as something rushed through its many chambers.

It reminded Harker of nothing so much as a creature he'd seen wash up against the shore. To the east of Vale, where the ocean met the isle, he had found it dead among the rocks. Its body was flabby and deflated, like flesh turned hollow, and animals had already gotten to it—but inside the shell, it was remarkable. A spiral as big as a house, it was segmented by ringed chambers all the way to the center. It was the same for Stillwater.

If anything, the thorned tributaries could be the fleshy body as it spread fully throughout his stout form. Harker tried to map it out, but the tributaries intersected one another so many times it was dizzying. The way they twisted and folded through each other was like the dark cousin of the knotwork in his Chartermark. Far easier to track were the pieces that split off from the edges around Stillwater's reservoir. Splitting into at least ten directions, five were far thicker than the rest.

One to each arm and leg, and one up through the chest, throat, and head. Harker smiled. The primary Locks. That's what they were called in human anatomy, at least. In Stillwater, these primary branches thinned, shrinking down into smaller thorns, until at the very end they bound up a piece of gnarled shell in a net of fine, rootlike hairs. Those must be his Locks… and if he doesn't use Water, then Stature must flow out of them. Harker frowned. Does that mean it can flow through mine?

Just as he'd told Stillwater, Harker's Stature was stiff and inflexible. So far, he'd considered that a benefit of strengthening it, as it made coercing him through their Bargain impossible for the Gilken. Not to mention, it seemed to somehow stabilize his connection to the Sea. A connection that the Vestige was routinely stressing. If Stature could flow, it must be some feature of Eidhrin anatomy… or a trick that Stillwater didn't want to share. Both were equally likely.

The tributaries, though, Harker made sure to examine from every angle. His ears heard only the rush of waves, his nose and mouth filled with the bitter taste of salt, and the grit of silt blurred his vision. It was as if Stillwater's body didn't want to be understood, but Harker didn't care. Nearly blinded to the differences of each thorned branch, Harker followed them by touch alone. Over long minutes that bled into hours, Harker lost himself in study. The tributaries went through more than simple flesh.

Just as in humans, they were also a function of the spirit—only far more so, as if the tributaries were sunk through the fabric of Stillwater's soul. It's Stature. Stillwater's words from hours ago rolled through Harker, and he could feel that it was true. Whatever pumped through the Gilken's thorned branches was also present between his flesh. It wasn't isolated to around the reservoir like Harker's, but woven through Stillwater. No. It is him.

There was flesh and bone, but the deeper Harker delved the more he found Stature, as if it were all that held Stillwater upright. The Gilken's anatomy was strange and simple all at the same time. He bore a skeleton just as anything, but his organs were far less complicated than any humans, as if they'd been streamlined to fit more ineffable Stature into every crevice. He kept that revelation to himself. The Gilken was sensitive about a great many things, and Ancestor's only knew what he would try to hide.

It was useful, but it wasn't enough. Harker leaned in, his senses raking through Stillwater as he traced out the first of his primaries again. There was much to learn. Morning arrived on swift wings, and Harker's Talent guttered out, hurling him back to his own body. His eyes were gritty and his limbs leaden, but at least he had a sour ache across his forehead, temples, and neck. He'd overdrawn his reservoir. Something that hadn't happened since he'd been cursed.

It took a moment to master the pain, but soon he banished it. It burned in the pyre with all of his other distractions. Harker stretched, groaning as he stepped back from Stillwater. At some point in the night, the Eidhrin had slumped over his rock and fallen asleep. Harker envied him. He hadn't slept in—he wasn't sure. But now wasn't time to rest. He reached into his pack, fishing out a kaffa sprout and chewed on it.

Energy spiked through him, returning a measure of strength to his limbs and a flexibility to his mind.

"Right," he muttered to himself.

"I think we can begin." He unpacked his materials, pulling free his thaumic cauldron and a selection of base herbals. Simple reagents that were more useful as a base than catalyst. That was reserved for the special herb he'd been carrying since his night in the den. Sticks snapped and rocks tumbled as a bleary-eyed Adhira crashed through the underbrush. She slid to an ungainly stop, eyes wide and staring at Harker on the stump.

"You're here." She sounded relieved.

"I woke up and for a moment I thought—""That I'd left?"

"No, that you'd gotten into trouble." Adhira cleared her throat.

"I thought I'd have to come save you. Are you refining?" She nodded without waiting for an answer. There was sleep in her eyes and her hair was a tangled mess, but she moved with an almost regal certainty.

"That is wise. We have much to consolidate after yesterday." Adhira sat down in the dirt and started to breathe. Immediately a faint glow suffused her form. It rolled through her, fading at the bottom of every exhalation, before gathering as she inhaled once more. Harker watched her for a moment, skin prickling as she refined Water from the Sea. Such a bad liar. She'd come hunting for him for fear he had left. That made his stomach warm in a way that he didn't want to examine.

Far more interesting was seeing her refine—most folks did it behind closed doors, or at least out of his sight. The faint glow at her center and along her limbs was fascinating… but ultimately he tore his gaze away. Watching was useless. He could only witness things from the outside, and that gave Harker nothing. He set his cauldron onto the ground and removed the Ghostflower Root from his pack. It was well past time to make some tributaries of his own.