Creusus's Arc

Chapter 34 of 43

The pinned shapes above them thinned to smoke. The red light in the columns dimmed. For a breath Creusus thought they had won it. Then the floor tilted and the temple folded inward like wet paper. Water came. It came from the seams in the black stone and from the mouths of the pinned things. It rose past Creusus's knees before he could stand. Thane grabbed his arm. The water was warm and it smelled like the pond bridge north of the logging town, like weeds and old rain. "Up," Thane said. "Push us up." Thane raised one hand. The air above them refused him. His fingers shook and closed on nothing. The water hit Creusus's chest. Creusus hummed. The wrappings on his knuckles were cold. He drove a fist into the nearest column. His hand went through the stone like it was cloth. There was nothing behind it to hit. The column stayed. The water climbed. "It isn't real," Creusus said. His mouth filled. He spat it out. "Thane. It isn't real. Don't breathe it." But he breathed it. He could not help breathing it. Thane went under first. His dark hair spread on the surface and then that was gone too. Creusus reached for him and his hand closed on water. He kicked. His legs were heavy. He thought of Kallista under the fig tree and the dirt on her hands. He thought, I have not finished. He thought, the tournament. The post. The bandages. His chest burned. He opened his mouth to say a name and the water took him. Then there was no water. There was no floor. There was no up. Creusus had no arms to lift. He tried to hum and had no throat. The dark around him was not the dark of the temple. It was thicker. It pressed. It pressed on a shape of him that was not his body but remembered being his body. Somewhere in the pressing he could feel Thane, a small warm point that was also being pressed. A voice moved through the dark. It was his own voice, and it was Diablo's. You are a piece. Come back to the whole. Creusus had answered this before. He remembered answering. He could not find the words now. The pressing grew. The warm point that was Thane grew smaller. Creusus felt himself thinning at the edges, like ink in water. The dark took the rest of him.