Chương 31: Unexpected Guest

Eoin staggered to his feet, nearly falling over as he managed to get upright.

"Whoo. I don't know how long it's been since I stood up on my own. Going to take some getting used to!" He was gaunt, a pale and grimy imitation of the debonair projection she had known in Solas's basement. He touched his head.

"I miss my hat."

"A hat is the crown of any outfit," Cormac agreed, adjusting his own felt monstrosity. Eoin turned to the captain.

"I don't believe we've met. Am I to assume you've been my jailer the past six months? The gambler?" Cormac straightened, and Miriam noticed his fingers shifting. Clearly he was hoping for some luck in not angering the powerful man he'd kept prisoner in an underwater iron cage.

"I… yes. Inadvertently. I came to own the Líadan unexpectedly and didn't realize… I'm Cormac Fiadh."

"It's fine," Eoin said, wringing water and seaweed out of his hair.

"Eoin Daithi. Perhaps my friend here mentioned me?"

"Um… a little." Eoin reached his hand out.

"Good to meet you. Don't worry - I am not angry at my unjust and cruel imprisonment. Not at you anyway. It was you taking ownership of this ship that allowed me to escape after all." Miriam scowled.

"What do you mean by that?" Eoin shook Cormac's hand forcefully.

"Any true captain of a Long Si vessel would know that you have to repair the fórsa seals with blood every fourteen days. That you did not allowed me to project through the ocean and reach my friend here. Though it wasn't enough for me to actually break free - at least not yet. Another year or two and I might have managed it."

"And you knew exactly that weakness," Miriam said.

"Because you created these 'vampire ships'." Eoin grinned, holding his arms out.

"You can't get anything past this one! Yes, though maybe we can talk about it later? Am I to understand there is some sort of emergency I could help with?" Miriam led Eoin back out on deck, noticing that his balance seemed to improve incredibly swiftly - no longer stumbling or staggering. She pointed him back to where the derelict ship was disturbingly closer than it had been before.

"Who the hell is that?" Róise called from the mainmast.

"I see," Eoin said, scratching his beard.

"And why did you think I could solve this problem?"

"The man chasing us is a Pathfinder Adept, and many levels above us. Our plan is to navigate the ship through a dangerous pass, then attempt to founder him such that he could not easily follow." Cormac seemed to still keep an uneasy distance from Eoin.

"But we have no way of outrunning him, or successfully getting ourselves through the pass." Eoin looked at Cormac sharply.

"So, it's as I thought. You're going on Cianán's Walk." Cormac licked his lips.

"You know about it?"

"Enough to know that it's a fool's journey." Eoin shook his head.

"Do you know what it is you're walking into?"

"I know what it is we're running from," Cormac said.

"Ultán will kill us for certain. Cianán's Walk will maybe kill us. It's still a better choice." Eoin sighed.

"Fine. Let me see what we're dealing with." Discs of light manifested in front of Eoin's right eye, forming a series of telescope lenses.

"Ah… yes, I can see what the problem is." Casually he lifted one hand and plucked a dagger out of the air that had been hurled from Ultán's ship.

"If I were in peak form, I could probably defeat this bounty hunter easily. However, after years of having my fórsa sucked away - and it is in fact still being sucked away, as long as I'm on this ship - I am in no condition to assure a victory. I do have to concur with your plan."

"So what are we going to do?" Miriam asked. He winked.

"Just hold on." The ship lurched forward. Thin blue rivers of fórsa were crawling down from Eoin's hand on the railing into the water, causing the sea around the ship to glow slightly. Back at the mainmast they could hear Róise curse.

"What the hell is going on, guys?" This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"I'm just doing the same thing your bounty hunter friend is," Eoin said, suddenly looking a lot more tired.

"If I tried to push the ship I would burn out my fórsa very quickly. At which point the bounty hunter would catch up and the ship would, well… eat you. Instead I'm just moving water out of the way - reducing the friction, I suppose you could say." The space between the two ships began to open up again. Eoin nodded.

"I should be able to keep this up until we reach the Gate." Cormac grinned.

"I am so glad Miriam freed you! No matter what a dumb decision it was at the time!"

"I aim to please." Miriam crossed her arms.

"But why are you helping us, Eoin? You could be gone in a flash. Ultán isn't hunting you. As far as the First Ring goes, at least as far as I know, you're a free man. No need to participate in whatever dangerous thing Cormac has planned."

"Let's not go convincing the nice water-man to stop saving us, please?" Cormac was gesturing very rudely at Miriam behind Eoin's back. Eoin looked at Miriam sadly.

"I'm sorry that your opinion of me has sunk so low, though as I said in that grim basement - I deserve it. I'm here, risking my life, delaying my freedom, continuing to get my fórsa drained - which doesn't feel great, let me tell you - for only one reason. You're my friend. That month we spent training you in Solas's cabin was a lifeline for me as much as it was for you. Sunk under the water in an iron cage for years, I had lost all hope of things ever changing - until I felt a presence under the sea.

In one of only a few places where I could actually talk to someone else who didn't have gills! It seemed like fate to me. So while our original agreement is finished, I would see you safe before I take off into the wild blue." Miriam pursed her lips, thinking. Then she sighed and wrapped Eoin in a hug.

"I don't know if I can overlook what you've done. But you are my friend too, as much as the smart thing would be to deny it."

"Wouldn't be too smart right now, honestly," Cormac added.

"That… makes me happy to hear," Eoin said, swallowing.

"Maybe if we make it through this I can work on forgiveness."

"This is a good first step," she said. Róise called back from the main mast.

"I swear to the gods if someone doesn't tell me what the hell is happening back there I'm just jumping overboard." Miriam turned to Cormac.

"So, what is Cianán's Walk?" ✧✧✧ In times before anyone currently living had even begun to draw breath, the eternal King Cianán had become bored. The land, ever changing and mercurial, mirrored its ruler in his heyday; tricky, mischievous… maybe even a little cruel. With millenia passing by as he sat heavy on his throne, he had begun to miss the days of his mortal youth, when he played merry pranks on people and enjoyed the frivolities of a young Sidhe with a ton of fórsa and a wicked imagination.

Rising from his throne took him three days and stopped the tides on a sea two rings away from coming in. He had simply accumulated too much power. All the fórsa in the Tír poured through him every day - some even said it was only because of him that fórsa drifted towards the center ring in the first place. Cianán was ponderous and destructive. He was immensely frustrated - this was exactly the sort of thing he was trying to get out of. He wanted to be young again, fleet of foot and nimble.

Ultimate power was boring. He needed to shed his power. Cianán devised a plan to do just that. He could use the geography of the Tír itself to strip away his power, just as it did the fórsa which came in from the Realms Above. Moving in the way only the truly powerful could, he blinked and reappeared at the edge of the Forest Unending. Some say this act is what created the unstable regions of the Golden Swamp - its natural fórsa damaged to this day. But Cianán had no care for that.

He aimed himself once again at the center of the Tír and began to walk. At first, his every step dug enormous furrows into the ground, seas parting for fear of touching his feet. Mountains sprang from his every stride. As his power fell from him he left behind horrors, but he had no eyes for looking backwards. His only goal was the center of the Tenth Ring, where, if he was correct in his guess, he would emerge still enormously powerful by anyone's rational reckoning but no longer an immovable god.

He tore a channel through the entire First Ring, but by the time he breached the Second, his power was greatly diminished already. No longer did he deform the earth as he walked. Now he simply strode as the most powerful man in the world, causing problems of a different kind, but nothing like the wound he had just left upon the Tír. The years that followed were marked as some of the most violent and harrowing times in the Tír's memory as he danced a merry jig throughout his own kingdom.

His pranks were sometimes as petty as souring the milk from a farmer's cow. Sometimes they were fomenting civil wars. Or, some were just incomprehensible, as when he bound the soul of a peerless beauty to a wooden doll in the Fifth Ring. Other denizens of the Tenth Ring saw his weakening as an opportunity to bolster their own station, and these conflicts also pleased the King - he loved playing all sorts of games. Their battles tore new deserts into what had once been verdant farmland.

Years - perhaps decades - later Cianán finally reached his throne once more, and was satisfied. He deserved a rest, he decided, and to all Sidhe knowledge, has remained there to this day. The initial furrow he tore into the First Ring became known as Cianán's Walk. Rumors abounded; there was power to be claimed in the Walk. Enough to vault anyone up at least a ring or two. They remained only rumors - no one who went in ever came out again. ✧✧✧"And that's where you're taking us?" Miriam asked, flabbergasted.