Chương 121: The Desert Selkie

Some Selkies swear the water gets colder the further Outward you go. Ultán, born in the Bay of Tith on the west side of the Second Ring, knew no different. But even to a Selkie pup in his thick seal skin, the water did seem cold. All the time. Selkies keep their young solitary until they grow into their High Sidhe form, so Ultán spent most of his childhood exploring depths of the surrounding waters while his parents kept them moving.

Every week they found themselves hiding in a new underwater cave, or inside a different shipwreck. It wasn't until he was nearly working age that Ultán realized that, even for a Selkie, this way of living wasn't normal. Ultán had just cleared his sixty-fifth birthday when two men commanding a legion of hunter sharks cornered them on a beach just outside the Third Ring. He watched as they made the economical choice for bringing his father back with them "dead or alive" with a knife across his throat.

His mother was taken away in shackles. Ultán was beaten and thrown onto shore. They called him an illegitimate bastard and that if they ever got wind he'd entered the waters of the South Bay Tribe again he'd get the same treatment his father had. As he lay there, bleeding among the sharp rocks and shells, he could really only wonder what in the hell had just happened. After nearly a day of licking his wounds and mourning his father, Ultán stood up.

His legs were shaky - wounded, for sure, but also unused to living on dry land. He felt as weak as a newborn pup. His mind played through dozens of fantasies of revenge - of swimming into the South Bay Tribe, whoever they were and wherever they called home, brutally murdering his assailants and taking his mother home. Of course, he could do none of those things. At the moment all he could do was bleed, stand and starve. And he was tired of starving.

The water, which had been his home his entire life, now seemed hostile and frightening. Instead he chose to work out those shaky legs and meander down the beach. He wandered up to a fishing village a few hours later - his feet bloody and ripped. He'd never worn shoes before. The people there were kind, seeing a kid in need. They fed him and treated his wounds. They even offered him work on their small fishing vessels, but he declined. He wasn't ready to go back into the water yet.

The fishing village was all too eager to talk gossip, however. They were an eclectic group of mostly Banshees and Crockern, but there were a few Selkies among them as well. The South Bay Tribe was all too known to them. He'd been wise not to re-enter the water - every drop was their territory around here, for thirty miles in every direction. South Bay was ruled by Waterlord Garvan, who had terrorized the shipping lanes for more than a hundred years.

He was said to be ruthless - which Ultán could attest to, if his parents had gotten on Garvan's bad side. This information did nothing to help Ultán enact revenge. And to be frank, his motivation to do so was draining with each passing day as he begged for scraps on the edges of the village.

As years began to pass his reputation as a vagabond and a layabout began to spread, and in the small network of villages huddled on the edge of the South Bay he was finding the warm reception he had enjoyed as a child rapidly cooling. He spent most days sick in alleys as dark as he could find, and the nights in the villages' brightest taverns, until then they began to refuse him entry, tired of his endless schemes to nick a bottle or two for free.

The day his life changed he was moaning blearily to himself on the side stoop of a dry goods store, the proprietors of which had learned that no matter how often they chased him away, the next morning would find him huddled and stinking at their door. Their side porch was more comfortable than most. There was a clink of weapons, and a creak of leather boots. Ultán looked up to see a man in desert wrappings, bandana over his mouth. He croaked belligerently at this new figure, waving him away.

"So you're the village drunk," the man said, his voice passionless. Just stating facts.

"Well, I'm in the village. Drunk," Ultán said, proud of his clever wordplay.

"What's it to you?" The man nodded once, pulled his leg back and kicked Ultán in the gut. Ultán vomited instantly, gasping.

"I wander through every couple of years and find jobs that need doing. A whole bunch of villages around here pointed me to you. You're apparently a job that needs doing." The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Gods," Ultán growled.

"A polite 'go away' would have sufficed." He stood up on shaky legs.

"I live in these towns, mister. And nobody's going to make me leave." Almost amazed himself that he remembered how to, he fired off Forceful Wind, a technique he had taught himself before he lost his parents. The desert man rocked back at the gust, but never even lost his footing.

"You're Wind Nature?" the man asked, surprised.

"Very rare for a Selkie."

"I spent my youth too often at the surface, my mom said," Ultán slurred.

"My dad said I was poisoned by the wind."

"Poisoned by drink is all," the man said.

"I'll show you what that's supposed to be like." He pushed his hand forward and a torrent of wind slammed Ultán into the side of the dry good store, though not even the dirt around the stoop was disturbed. Ultán struggle, but there was nothing he could do. The wind was so great he couldn't even pull breath from it and within a few moments he felt the world darken. When he woke the whole world had gotten darker, but he was relieved to see it was just from the onset of dusk rather than some disquieting afterlife.

He found himself tied up in the dusty back of an empty wagon. Wind whipped around him and dust stung his eyes. On the front of the wagon sat the desert man who had so effortlessly humiliated him, quietly driving a pair of camels before him.

"Don't speak," the man said.

"Are we in danger?" Ultán whispered.

"No," the man said.

"I simply don't want to hear your voice." The man ignored everything Ultán had to say, spit or shout at him as the day continued to darken. Through the slats of the wagon he could see the lush wetlands fed by the bay drying out, the grass becoming thinner and brown. Finally quieting himself, he asked calmly, "Where are you taking me?" The man turned his head finally.

"The people of the bay villages are kind, but their patience has limits. I will take you as far as I can into the desert and leave you with little hope of darkening their doors again."

"Ah," Ultán said, relaxing back against the pool of sand that was beginning to accumulate there.

"So you're going to kill me." The man shrugged.

"Maybe you'll die. It's not for me to say." They rode in silence the rest of the night, Ultán spending the majority of it attempting to use his Wind to find a way to cut the hemp wrapped tight around his limbs, with absolutely no luck. He wished, not for the first time, that he had been born with Water, like his parents. Water was particularly good at cutting. Close to dawn, the man stopped the wagon.

He unlatched the back panel and dragged Ultán out effortlessly - he was at least a Fourth, Ultán guessed, by the way he tossed him around like a sack of apples.

"I will untie you. In three directions -" he pointed north, east and west - "you will find villages within two or three days' walk. You will not go again to the North," the man said.

"That way has already rejected you and if I am hired to do a job a second time it looks bad for me. It would make me want to make sure the job stays finished."

"I understand," Ultán coughed, his mouth completely dry.

"If you go South, you will die," the man said simply.

"Here's a skin of water. Thank me now for my generosity, for it is the last of it you will see in this desert." Ultán's bonds came loose and he fumbled to grab the waterskin with numb fingers.

"Thank you," he muttered, nearly draining half the bag in one gulp.

"Where will you be going?" The man closed the back of his wagon and jumped back up to the reins.

"South." Ultán sat in the dirt, watching the wagon trundle off towards what the man had very clearly said was a certain death. Well, probably just a certain death for him. The desert man didn't seem concerned. Looking around, he thought he had never seen a more desolate place in his life. He didn't even bother looking north - he might be a drunk and a fool, but even he knew better to go back where he'd avoided the noose once already. So what then? West or east? What difference would there be there?

Find another stoop to vomit in? Another tavern to scheme bottles from? He sat there in the dirt, strangely probably more sober than he'd been in months and started to wonder if this was really what he wanted out of his life. He could go fish - Selkies were great at it. He'd make a living. Frankly he was happy to be away from the water. He'd have preferred maybe some liquid around, but at least he could look at a horizon that didn't constantly roil and churn.

Here the dunes swirled in a graceful dance, shedding sand in whorls of motion as the Wind took each grain. He felt strangely at home in a way the water that had been his whole life up to this point had never seemed. At least it wasn't so damn cold out here. To his own surprise he stayed in that one spot, watching the wind dance among the sand. There was a peace to this place that settled him to the core. He began to remember the Wind forms his father hadn't really known but tried to teach him.

Not formal dances - while water was fluid it was also rigid in a way, where wind moved freely. Instead he found himself in gentle swaying, allowing the breeze to push and pull him in the direction it chose. Where to go? Where might he trek in this inhospitable place where he might find meaning in his life? This was his sole preoccupation as he sat until night came once again. Where do I go? Then - a firefly in front of his face. He frowned. No - there were no fireflies in this desert.

It was a small dot of light which cast no shadow in the dark. He reached out to touch it, asking this strange visitor out loud the question that had tormented him all day.

"Where do I go?" A faint golden line arced out into a single direction in the desert. It was a thin line, and short, but resolute. This is the way to go. His cracked lips broke into a smile.

"Well. That's as good an answer as I'm likely to ever get," Ultán said, stretching his legs. Without another word he followed the line into the desert. South.