And the Darkling Reefs Abide

Chapter 4

First order of business was distracting the red guard. I looked at him, at the swell which always seemed to be in his bell, and I decided I didn’t want him to harmed, not truly.

We marched onward toward the lesser canyon reef. Canyon country was a land scratched east to west with canyons. You could look at the horizons and see clear to where the mesas rose up in the north, or the forests grew thick in the south. The ocean was to the west, but I forgot what was between us and that.

Corals rose up gnarled and reaching. There appeared in bursts across the land, breaking the flatness. Hardy plants clung to life in even more sparse arrangements. There was moss where the water might pool, but altogether any break from the palet of grays and browns was reserved for medusae themselves.

Three obstacles. The green jelly floated behind me, sunshield held up in one tentacle and a spear gripped in the other. Several eyestalks were reserved for staring right at me, and it seemed many sensors were awrithe, sifting the air for any hint to be suspicious of.

The jelly of shifting colors floated beyond me, as if keeping far distance from the dirty ratslayer. She had gone full pink right now, and I wasn’t sure at all what these colors meant. She had a small knife, held as if concealing right near her sunshield.

And the red guard floated just in front of me, bell inflating, and a few waving eyestalks looking at me. He was significantly more useful than any of the other obstacles. The fool thought we were friends. He would stand by me, at least once.

And that sort foolishness — I didn’t want to punish it too harshly. I decided I would see him steered blissfully away from harm.

Even then, not taking a wholly violent stance towards the lot of them makes me job so much more interminable.

(As if I stood a chance if I would want to take them all out. My line of thought is funny sometimes.)

We floated onwards to the lesser canyon reef, toward Avelt. The sun above us was making a return journey, and from the other side, clouds were travelling in at the call of rain. They were dark.

I looked at the red guard, the shifting guard, the green guards. I felt the coldness stinging my tentacles. It would endlessly even the playing field — of that I was assured. But was it ready? M said I would know when it was. Did I know? Did they factor in my ubiquitous uncertainty?

(No, Of course they did. They were a god.)

I had to assess the danger of the three guards. Colored jellies had Gifts carried on down their lines from when the gods and first anointed them. They all had some strange kind of magic I didn’t. Red was a ubiquitous spawning — fire. He could spray fire from his tresses, just a few feet, just barely hot. He’d shown me once, so I’d know even if F hadn’t told me all about them.

Green and they of shift rutiliance. I couldn’t pin them to any gift F had explained to me, and guessing was useless. Green couldn’t be utterly rare — there’d been one more guard like it. The the shifting jelly could commune with the gods. Was that part of their gift? It seemed to be singularly their capacity.

“You’ve gone all silent, R.”

I said nothing.

“You know, a little friendly chatter and you’d been less menacing. You want that.”

“Hi.”

“There you go. That’s a start.”

“How are you?”

“Oh, I’m doin fine. Been tiring myself out working long shifts this week. Was just hoping to relax after this one — didn’t expect nothing to actually happen. But you know what they say of expects.”

“Okay.”

The red guard drifted closer to me, his melody dropping to subtle vibrations of his bell. He said, “You know, O Yera over there is really spooked by you. You can’t tell by her act — or maybe you can, deathly clever bast you are — but you are all bad news in her book.”

“Okay.”

“These ’okay’s ain’t much better than silence you know.”

I waved my eyestalks silently. I glanced back to the green jelly behind us. The pair had been all silent as well. Made me wonder. Quite hard to get a real sense of jellies without them speaking.

I was used to pulling together images from as little as I could get – but just the word choice, just the way they conducted themselves in chatter — It all counted for so much, building a good image.

I needed to know if they would go down easily, not not.

“Why do you expect O ratslayer to even be capable of pleasantry?” It was the shifter who spoke.

“’Cause I know them personally. They got a certain dignity in how they carries themself.”

“A certain dignity,” came the response. “Of a jelly who’s covered in mud like they slept in a pit.”

“Better than cowering as many meters away as you can manage?”

I saw the shifter’s bell scrunch up.

Thered guard was speaking up almost as soon as I finished, replying properly, “Extenuating circumstances,” he said. “You’d be in a mess too, I imagine, after a run​-​in with the god of death.”

The shift looked suddenly at me. Bell squeezed tight and angular. Their tone was araw. “What is the name of the death god?”

I stopped in my floating. Fell down to my stalk. The voice — it hadn’t been a jelly voice, and theirs was not a jelly name. If it could even be reproduced by my membrane — I didn’t have to heart to do so.

I said, “A terrible name that starts with M.”

She paused too, at that. “Forget everything he’s told you.” He voice had taken on a certain tightness, a surety of purpose. “You don’t have to follow this path. There’s no prize at the end waiting for you. It only ends in annihilation. You lose.”

I picked up on something — higher, in her voice. I latched on, and said, “Thought you would share prophecies with the ugly ratslayer.”

“No prophecy. Merely divine commentary.”

I twisted my bell at that, made a low wordless, vibrating sound.

“Truth is, Aveltane knew you would not swayed. Knew you were hopeless.”

“Determined, is the word I prefer. I decided what I would do.”

To the red guard, she then spoke. “Why then, are we humoring this? Why escort him, hearing everything he’s said?”

“I don’t see the issue?”

“Kill him. Right now, right where he floats.”

I forced magic into my tresses, and bounced high, high above them.

Then I found myself right back at the ground, as if I’d never rose, as if all my momentum was gobbled up in a second.

I threw myself upward once more, to escape –

And found myself right back on the ground, as if I’d never rose at all.

The guards were still talking. They weren’t trying to kill me. It’d only been a suggestion. One that the red guard had vehemently rejected.

“No. Why would we ever do that? What has he done?”

“He has all but admitted to being a servant of the death god. Keeping him here is a mistake.”

“It’s common sense.”

“It’s allowing whatever he’s decided to take place.”

“If this is the work of some god — who’s to say us trying to kill him is part of whatever plan there is?”

“Stupid, stupid objection.”

“I’m not going to kill a jelly for no reason.”

“Even if it could save many more? Even if it was the right, holy thing to do?”

“Even then.”

It had to the been the green jelly’s Gift, that kept me from escaping. Teleportation? They had a tress pointed right at me.

This is good and bad. I had another piece in my puzzle. Two more pieces – the green jelly could prevent me from escaping, easily, and the shifter jelly, indeed, has some sort of gift that lets her easily talk to the gods.

This was so, so, much harder than it could have been. I miss dealing with colorless jellies.

“I don’t like the way his eyes are searching right now. What are you planning?”

I was thrown off, just a bit, from how she went from talking about me to talking to me , but I responded, “I wanted to run. You are talking about killing me.”

“We won’t kill you.” That was the red guard. They thrown a tentacle affectionately around me. I flinched away, so hard and quick that the green jelly teleported me again.

“Can we get moving again?” My bell was expanded and deflating, and breaths were absorbed. What a dreadful exchange that was.

“Yes, let’s.”

“I haven’t had lunch.”

I said it as we entered town. The lesser coral reef was a forest of coral, rising up, spreading out, growing intertwined and interleaving. Jellyfish floated about, and octopus and snails danced around as well, some on leashes, some carried, some wandering about on their own, with the snapping energy of ferals. They all pressed themselves on through the maze of coral, finding their own way through the abundance of paths and spaces that defined a reef.

Some paths lead to dark holes dug in the ground or inside buttes. Many jellies tended the inside of these structures, like fruit poised on the limbs of a tree.

“Do you expect us to escort you to dinner? Did you not want to get cleansed at the sun spire immediately?”

I absorbed a breath, and measured by my words. “I think I might be waiting there a while. After all I — I intend to see the high priestess.”

They did pause at that, but it seemed like they were growing used to these revelations — the notion wouldn’t surprised them for an instance.

Then it was the shifter who spoke up. “No.”

“I stated a fact.”

“Here’s another: You will not, regardless of your intentions.

“You underestimate me.”

“Is that a threat?”

“I think,” the red guard interrupted, “Letting you two talk to each other is entirely a mistake.”

He looked to me. “R, we can drop by an eatery on the way to the spire.”

“Of course you side with him.” Before he could respond, she continued, “Are you in league with the death god too, I wonder. Might as well be.”

He audibly expelled breath, but the shifter continued speaking.

“But it’s stupid to do his bidding and not get rewarded, I imagine.”

“Here’s a last fact,” I said, “you should shut up.”

“Spare yourself, R. I’m used it. I’m a medusa. I can take it.”

I waved my eyestalks, and started impetuously toward my favorite — the cheapest — dinner.

I was teleported back by the green jelly.

I glared at him, my bell all squeezed and angular.

I thought I saw a hint of swelling to them, as we started, all together this time.

I really should have been thinking about my immediate next step in my plan. But my thoughts keep getting repeatedly stuck on the sharp corals of distractions.

It felt safe, knowing that I had a right proper ally in the red guard. It took dangerous edge off this situation, made me soft and squishy.

But when it came down to it, he was an obstacle like any other. I needed to see the high priestess alone, and I knew he would stand in way of that, when the time came.

The green jelly. My eyestalks kept point back toward them, following their every motion. At least two eyestalks were always on each of their eight tresses. They were the bars of my prison, truly.

I imagined taking my knife, and hacking them off one by one.