Oceans embrace, p.42
Ocean's Embrace, page 42
Sven snarled and swam for the ravine. Zane grabbed for him, but he slipped out of his brother’s grasp. He kicked hard—it had been too long, Leanne needed air, right now, he had to get her to the surface. Zane’s hand closed around his ankle like a vice and yanked him back with surprising strength—even for his soldier brother—just as he was reaching the drop-off.
Zane ignored Sven’s furious snarling, holding him tight. Forcing Sven’s body close against his own, Zane propelled them both away from the deep, away from the graves of countless Ceteans… and maybe his precious Leanne.
Eventually, Sven quit fighting and finally heard the rumbles and clicks his brother was using to reason with him. There was no reassurance; there couldn’t be. It had been ten minutes at least. There was no way Leanne could have survived without air that long.
Sven heard his mother’s grieving cry piercing the water, and he let his own lament join hers.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Leanne weakly pulled herself from the water, scraping her skin across the rough stones lining the canal. The first breath she took, breaking the surface at last, had nearly drowned her anyway, in her physiological desperation to breathe. Coughing and spluttering, she’d kicked herself away from the open sea toward the Temple, and found a low spot in the canal where she could clamber up. Her limbs were jelly, her lungs hurt, her nose and throat stung with the salinity of the water, but she was alive. She’d done the three things. She’d saved herself.
Thank you, gods.
Turning herself to face the gloriously bright and warm sun, Leanne closed her eyes and lay still on the pavement, willing her heart to slow. Her clothes, made of that miraculous Cetean fiber, did not weigh her down, but her hair was a wet mess down her back. Then she noticed that there were voices around her. Her waterlogged ears were muffling almost everything, but her implant compensated, correcting the voices themselves, so that she heard the gasps and exclamations of the Ceteans who were walking by.
Opening her eyes, she made her weak and tired body to obey her orders, pushed herself to an unsteady seated position, and forced a smile on her face. Looking around at the crowd, she gave a limp wave and said, “Hello. Sorry—to disturb you—just catching—my breath.”
An atonal wail split the air around her, jolting her out of her exhaustion and pumping a new wave of adrenaline through her veins. A deeper cry followed, and another, and then a fourth. Leanne broke out in gooseflesh at the terrible beauty of the sounds.
The Ceteans that had been approaching her turned to look around, and she followed suit. At the front of the Temple, the Prime Minister was being led down the steps by Francis. Behind her, Sven was clutching his brother Zane, both of them disheveled, their fringe dripping wet. The High Priest was performing his oily routine with flutters and darts around the four of them, saying something she couldn’t hear at such a distance, and pointing to direct other Temple staff. The wails started again, and she saw it was Sven and Beatrice who were crying out.
Fuck, Leanne thought. Shoving herself up awkwardly—she’d lost the second crutch somewhere between the hatch and the surface—she stumbled forward toward the Temple. She tried to call to Sven, but the salt water had turned her voice to a hoarse rasp that didn’t carry. She stumbled again, and a Cetean stranger braced her elbow to steady her. Turning to clutch the arm of the unknown female, Leanne tried again. “Please, that is my family—” How did she even begin to explain this? “We’ve just had a terrible accident.”
What an understated rephrasing of, “My soon-to-be brother-in-law tried to kill me, and if Sven doesn’t find me soon, someone will lose their limbs.”
The Cetean female, eyes widening in alarm, nodded. She turned to say something to her male companion, but Leanne had directed her attention back to Sven. She raised her arm to wave, to get their attention, to warn them about Talin.
A sharp whistle overrode the next round of cries. Leanne winced at the shrill sound that cut right through her swimmer’s ear. But it had done the trick. Zane had turned toward the sound, his usually sharp eyes somewhat dulled as he searched the crowd for the source. Leanne waved again, almost unbalancing herself, and felt the male who had whistled brace her on her other side. Zane’s eyes widened, and he shook Sven in his arms, breaking the deep keen Sven had been making. Zane pointed, and Sven’s head snapped around.
Held by the elbows as she was, Leanne couldn’t wave again, but she smiled and tried to call out again. She managed a moderately intelligible, “Sven!” as their eyes met across the canal.
Gods be praised, Sven thought, as he flung himself away from Zane and down the Temple steps in one leap. Two more bounds and he was over the canal bridge and sprinting to Leanne. Her hair was soaked and dripping, but she seemed unharmed, though she wobbled on her feet. He swept her into his arms. His knees gave out, but he ignored the pain in his kneecaps as he sobbed into the hair of the human who was his heart. Who was alive. Who held him as tightly as he held her.
Sven was only vaguely aware of the crowd increasing around him, and Leanne’s own sobbing drowned out his mother’s continued grief song. Only when the Temple bells began to toll the death rhythm did he relax his hold on Leanne and draw her to her feet.
Part III
Chapter Thirty-Six
Requiem House was even more suited to its name, Leanne thought, as she swung quietly down the long hall to the foyer. The family had been in a state of mourning for three days since Talin’s disappearance into the deep. Every mirror was covered with a black cloth. All doors to outside were left ajar. None of the family wore any jewelry—Leanne was using her plastic-printed canes since the others were lost, so wearing her cuffs was out anyway, and that was the only jewelry she’d had since leaving Earth. The males of the House were ridged and scruffy with their facial scales unsloughed and fringe uncut. Divina had given Leanne a lesson in how to tie the black headscarf of morning around herself. No music played; no voices raised beyond the minimum needed to communicate.
Vester and Beatrice had been distant and isolated since the incident at the Temple. There was another, and blessedly shorter, inquest about Talin. The Council of Elders heard only one day of testimony and deliberated for only six hours. Beatrice was strong throughout, despite the pain bracketing her mouth and creasing her brow. Vester was cold, businesslike, and unusually laconic. The High Priest was saccharine sweet in his words before the Council, and unctuous in his false sympathy.
Leanne had to testify again before the Council, and it wasn’t any easier the second time. As during the first, she was arguing a case from a position of ignorance—of customs, of laws. But again the Council heard her, and was lenient. They had been insisting that Talin’s actions amounted to political and familial treachery, thereby denying him—and by extension, his family—any funeral rites, requiring his name to be struck from the House and Temple records. Leanne argued that his degree of treachery was not so severe, that the Council would have had to punish some of the Elders for speaking or acting out similar crimes the week previous. That shut them up like clams right quick, and reduced Talin from total erasure to abbreviated but respectful mourning. Sven had smiled at her, and Logon had tweaked her nose for her sneakiness, but they all agreed it secured her place and was the right thing to do for the lost Son of the House.
The High Priest was not so lucky. The Council decided to launch another investigation into the Temple. They were not impressed by the security or maintenance methods the Order employed.
Beatrice and Vester were given a leave of absence from those proceedings, until the grieving period was over. That gave them six days, rather than the customary nine. The Council included the days that had been spent on the inquest, though, and Leanne was outraged that the bereavement leave was so reduced, but Sven talked her out of making another stand.
There was no body to display, nor even teeth to be cleaned and interred. The members of the House who were not planetside would not make it back in time for the Temple ceremonies and rites due a member of the Order.
Vester took charge of the public statement, which simplified the facts: religious extremism, racism, theft, destruction of public property, civilian endangerment, and attempted murder. The accompanying death notice included that he was a beloved son, listed his credentials and accomplishments, and the date and time of the services.
What an uncomfortable combination of lines to compose for a son, she thought.
In an hour, the Prime Minister and Matriarch of House Requiem would stand before the Cetean people. It would be the family’s first official appearance before the people since the inquest, and Leanne’s first official public appearance with the House, too. Those who chose to would grieve with the family, and honor a lost soul in what ways they could. Leanne didn’t know how to guess the number that would do so.
In the foyer, Leanne met the surviving brothers, minus Philip. As the oldest son, he was organizing and conducting funeral proceedings, such as they were. Sven had told Leanne the previous day that, technically, his lost brother had already had his funeral. As the gods’ judgment had deemed him evil—apparently, the appearance of the leviathan had signified such—he did not warrant any other grieving, regardless of his standing in the Temple. But, as one of the first born after the Recent Wars, as a member of what was essentially a royal family to the Cetean people, and as a beloved male… They would perform the rites anyway. Besides, none of the ‘technical’ details mattered when the family needed the rituals to process his loss.
Leanne placed herself near Sven and waited in the quiet of the hall. Slowly, the House servants trickled into the foyer and stood in neat lines along the wall to either side of the brothers and Leanne. Their dark blacks and blues complimented the blue paint on the walls and the black mourning cloths on the mirrors and pictures in an eerie way.
Beatrice and Vester stepped into the foyer. Beatrice was pale, and Vester had deep lines around his mouth that made him seem gaunt and vampiric to Leanne. The guilt that had been weighing on her spiked, and she swallowed down the apologies that would not fix the holes in the hearts of the bereaved.
She knew it wasn’t her fault. She knew that. But the guilt still twined itself through her ribs and into her heart and stomach, cranking tighter every time she thought about Talin. Her presence was the final pebble on the scales of Talin’s unstable sanity, the last nudge he needed to tip into domestic terrorism and zealous rage. The blackness of his eyes before he had cast her into the ocean was evidence of his lost mind—the frenzy that overtook some Ceteans in heightened states of emotion. Usually it happened on the battlefield, and, rarely, during sex. Talin’s was the first incident of religious frenzy in recorded Cetean history. Leanne grieved with them, that it had been their son and brother, that it had been encouraged by her mere existence.
The Prime Minister stopped at the head of the foyer, and looked at every staff member before she walked down the row. As she passed, they each bowed their heads. Vester’s jaw ticked, and she recognized it as one of Sven’s habits. He did it when he was stressed, or holding back his words. The brothers and Leanne followed the grieving parents into the vehicles that would take them to the Temple.
The bells of the Temple were audible from outside the city. They tolled as the family made its way through the gates and across the bridges. The streets were lined with mourners. Cloths were draped over fences, garlands hung from lights and wrapped pillars, and many wore scarves tied around them. There were only four colors, besides the architectural elements too great to alter: black for mourning, white for justice, red for protection, blue of the proper shade to honor House Requiem.
At the Temple, the vehicles stopped. After the parents stepped onto the pavement, the brothers exited their cars in order of birth. Leanne, down the line as she was with Sven, saw that here the publics’ attire was different. More Ceteans wore white than black, a sign that most believed it was the will of the gods that they lose a Son of the House—a plain statement indicating they did not sympathize with the family, and did not mourn.
Another group of people stood in the garden of the Temple. They wore short cloth wraps, some plain, some beaded. Others wore wrapped grass mats tied with azure sashes. Their fringes were shaped; some like dorsal fins, some like the waving tentacles of an anemone, others in a stiff fan like a peacock’s display. Every bit of exposed scales—and there was ample exposure—was decorated with intricate designs.
When a male at the front stepped forward and away from the group, Leanne did a double take. She hardly recognized Francis, without his customary formal security garb. His tattoos, previously only visible on his face and arms, spanned his entire body. His muscles bulged as he moved, twisting the lines in beautiful distortions as he stopped and took a wide stance. The bells of the Temple fell silent.
Beatrice and Vester stood alone on the pavement, some distance from their children. Francis raised one arm, and he opened his mouth to bare his teeth. A deep thrum shook Leanne’s insides; the City Beat was back. Several moments passed between the first and second subterranean pulse, but when the third resonated through the crowd, a female moved up the Temple steps. At the fourth beat, she began to sing.
Tattooed similarly to Francis, she wore a long black dress and a wreath of greenery around her head. Her strong arms emphasized the resonant notes of her song with fluttering and fluid movements, like the trailing fins of a betta fish. Leanne couldn’t make out the words—or maybe her implant wasn’t up to translating funeral songs—but the emotion was clear in the timbre of the female’s voice. A final keening cry, and the singer let it fade away into the silence of the city.
With the next pulse, Francis moved, and with him, everyone in the crowd behind him. They followed Francis’s lead as he led them through a call and response, stomping of feet, clapping of hands… Matching the rhythm of the City’s Beat.
Leanne searched the crowd for other familiar faces, and saw Philip standing in the front row of Ceteans behind Francis. The female singer began again, alternating her clear voice with the slightly harsher cries of Francis and his group, and together they created an intense display. Leanne might have been tempted to call it a dance, but it was… something more.
Some of the street people moved to join the crowd behind Francis, and leapt into the rhythm and motion easily. As the movers stomped, they shook their fringe—which reformed and shaped to suit their motions—bared their teeth, and moved their hands as gracefully as fish fins. Some females in the crowd followed Francis, and others followed the female singer, but as one they were a united sea of rhythm and motion. As the city pulse grew faster, so did their motions. Zane moved from the family line to stand behind Francis, next to Philip, and slipped into place, like a fish in a stream. Zane had tears streaming down his face, which made his bared teeth, wide eyes, and bristling fringe all the more intense.
When they were through, the City Beat stopped as well—Leanne wasn’t sure which stopped first, or if it had been timed to be simultaneous. Tears were evident, glistening on the scales of the suddenly still crowd as they held their final positions and breathed heavily. Beatrice bowed her head, and Vester walked close beside her as they mounted the steps to the Temple. When Francis relaxed, everyone else he’d led did, too.
Zane took his place in the procession again. While his sadness and pain were still evident, and tears still sat in his eyes, he was changed by joining the performance. The hard lines and sharp edges of his features were softened, and he seemed more relaxed. Like going through those motions, with others, put him at ease with his grief, freeing him to move with his usual fluidity.
Philip didn’t appear to run, but he was at the Temple door before Beatrice and Vester reached it. He opened it for them, and held it for the rest of the family as they filtered into the sanctuary. It was beautiful, Leanne thought. The strangeness of the customs did not reduce the beauty of community gathering to support each other. The alien practices did not reduce the emotion and engagement she felt.
The underpriests who had been in Talin’s cohort performed the rites, and then the family, with other close members of House Requiem like Francis, Divina, Harrock, Chef Kane, and Dr. Stepilos, raised their voices in song.
After the hymns were sung, Leanne thought it would be over, but Beatrice began to sing again, alone this time. She sang only a short song. A fast, rhyming ditty that sounded like a nursery rhyme, one of those clever songs that tell stories to small children. As it was translated from Cetean by her implant, Leanne couldn’t make much meaning from the words. Vester held Beatrice close when she was done, and she muffled her sobs in his shoulder. It was the only time Leanne had seen her cry since the day Talin was lost, and she suspected she’d never see it again.
Individuals then made their offerings to Talin’s chosen god, or spoke to honor and remember the Son of the House. Each stood and spoke from their position among the mourners, either in the pews or among the scattered prayer mats and kneeling cushions. Chef talked about pups with sticky fingers taking snacks from his kitchen. Each brother offered something. Logon told a story of his brother as a young tad, and made many of the House laugh. Damien played his guitar-harp-thingy—Leanne didn’t know what it was called yet; there’d been no time to ask. Niel read a poem he had composed. Bryant spoke of Talin’s peaceful silence, how his ability to listen healed as much as any medicine or prayer. Philip offered a short prayer, a favorite of Talin’s. Harrock spoke, and Divina, and half a dozen others Leanne hadn’t met or didn’t recognize.
After each speaker, Leanne expected Sven to stand and offer something of his own. He didn’t. Neither did Vester.
When it looked like the underpriests were going to conclude things, Leanne stood. She looked around the room, at the unfamiliar faces staring warily back. The familiar faces were open, eyes widened in surprise. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and sang.
