Kjell's Arc

Chapter 25 of 27

The hand broke the surface and reached for Gunnar's flame. Kjell caught the wrist before it could close on the light. The skin was cold and slick. Grey threads ran up the arm and down into the dark water, tying this corpse to all the rest. Kjell had his goal now. He needed one body out of the pool. Merlyn held the carved bone, ready. But the threads held the corpse fast, and the whole host breathed as one. Pull too hard, and he would wake every dead thing at once. "Slow," Kjell said. "We take one. We do not wake the nest." Thorgar knelt beside him and set both axes down. He wrapped his thick hands around the corpse's shoulder. "On your word." Kjell pulled. The body rose an inch. The grey threads went taut and hummed. Below them, the breathing changed. Faces turned. Eyes that had stared up now rolled toward the light. A low sound moved through the water, many throats waking together. "They feel it," Merlyn said. His branded hands glowed faint green. "Cut the threads at the ribs, or they all rise." Thorin stepped to the edge with his father's axe. He did not wade in. He set the blade against the taut threads where they left the corpse. "Cut on three?" "Cut now," Kjell said. Thorin swung. The axe bit the threads. They did not part like rope. They snapped like sinew, and grey fluid sprayed the stone. The corpse tore free in Kjell and Thorgar's hands. They hauled it back from the edge and dropped it on dry rock. Behind them the pool erupted. Dozens of hands broke the surface at once, clawing for the shore, cut loose from the one they had lost. "Now, Merlyn," Kjell said. "Before they climb out." Merlyn dropped to his knees over the torn body. He found the binding-sign cut into the breastbone with his fingers. He pressed the carved bone to it and spoke one word. Gunnar was already there. He thrust his flame under the bone and held it. "Burn it," Gunnar said. "All of it." The bone caught. White fire ran from the corpse into the water along the broken threads. The nearest climbing hands stopped. The light raced from body to body through the grey lines that joined them. One by one the dead sank back, still, the breath gone out of them. The pool went quiet. The great shared breathing stopped for the first time since they had come down the road. Kjell stood over the burned corpse. His last saved bone was ash now. The host was dead. But the fire had shown him something new. Under the water, past the dead, the far wall held a low black arch. A colder air came from it. Whatever had bred this nest of bodies had not slept among them. It waited beyond that arch, and the road went on.