Chapter Twenty-two The Bucka
Chapter Twenty-two
The Bucka
The Father of Storms was as he always was.
Unreadable. Whatever his mood, it was as hidden as a riptide.
He placed himself at the copper-blue tunnel entrance – and their exit.
In the Bucka’s long fingers was the bone-handled knife.
He angled and rolled it across his knuckles, as though it were liquid, not steel.
When he spoke, it was with an ocean and its fathoms behind him. ‘Witchling.’
‘It didn’t work,’ blathered Kensa. ‘Isolde’s not herself; she’s wrong, somehow.’
The Bucka’s mouth twitched and his eyebrows rose a fraction. Not enough to be called a frown, though near to it. He seemed less human than ever. ‘For a wise woman, you do lack wisdom.’
A pounding throbbed in Kensa’s head. She wanted to lie down.
Not be here, discerning conundrums posed by a minor sea god.
Anger, ever-present and easy to summon, pressed against her teeth.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid. On and on, that blade swam in his grasp.
Kensa could not draw her eyes from it. ‘Tell me how to fix her.’
‘She isn’t broken,’ said the Bucka plainly. ‘Give her time, she’ll recover.’
Elowen secured herself at Kensa’s side, suckered like a limpet, as though they were kids again. ‘He’s lying.’
‘He can’t lie, we have the Pact.’
‘A man can always lie,’ said Elowen.
And the bind between wise woman and sea god was never about truth, Kensa realised.
The Bucka inclined his head, a queer lean. ‘If I hand a child an apple larger than his fist and he chokes, am I to blame?’
Kensa slid her eyes to her bare feet, thoughts a brambled mess, until the realisation came to her. ‘You tricked me,’ she said slowly. ‘You knew it wouldn’t work.’
‘It will not be long until she kills, for death needs death to sustain itself.’ A solemn shape took his lips, while that knife continued spinning. ‘Once that happens, I will have what I want.’
‘Why?’ Elowen asked. Her voice was far steadier than Kensa’s and she did not flinch at his direct stare, which remained on her a beat too long. Surprisingly, the Bucka turned away first.
Kensa’s fury was lost, replaced by shame. How ridiculous she’d been to forsake the warnings she’d known since birth. He was a cat in a dovecot and she a thing with feathers. What else would he do but bite?
‘I know what it is to be ignorant, to ask why and gain no answer,’ he said. ‘I will give you this, at least.’
He slid past them with steps that were not steps and appeared at the pool’s edge.
It began to shiver, flat, then churning, pouring itself into shapes: a dozen horses in white.
The mirages weren’t alive, Kensa realised, they were no more conscious than the shadow-puppets her late father once cast against the walls.
Yet these were far more detailed. Sweat shone on the horses’ flanks, while riders appeared on their backs, bearing spurs on their heels and spears in their hands.
Hooves pounded the pool’s surface and yet the beasts galloped on the spot, sending water surging outwards, as opponents rose up in challenge – and were swiftly cut down.
Translucent spray fanned out: seawater now, blood back then.
Men such as these had not been seen in centuries.
Men such as these should be run from.
Among their number and cast in salt was a warrior in armour, longsword clasped within his powerful fist. When his mount reared between his thighs, he held on to its back as though nothing – no wind, no rain, no blow – could take him down.
A fierce battle rang through the cave. Elowen pressed her back to the wall, while Kensa heeled forwards, though she too was afraid, and reached out to touch one running beast. It pulled away, eyed her, then leaned its watery muzzle to her palm.
Here, the Bucka explained, ‘In the forgotten age, when our land knew another name, there was a man who would be the last king to rule it.’
‘Gerent,’ said Elowen quietly.
A name which Kensa already knew. For once, she was not annoyed at her sister’s vast knowledge and quickness. Now, she needed it. King Gerent. Could it be? She roamed the Bucka’s sharp features, his stance, that eel-skin coat as weighty as a royal cape.
‘King Gerent was arrogant – I was arrogant – and the first wise woman of Portscatho punished him for it.’ As he spoke, the pool’s visions shifted.
Arrows were loosed and with them a spear, which shot straight into Gerent’s thigh.
‘She was a clever bitch, this wise woman,’ continued the Bucka, as the water-king staggered off his horse and fell to his knees, hands lifting to plead with a graceful figure.
‘She thought to punish him for his cruelties, for she had witnessed what he had done to her village. Her hands salved the lash marks on his servants’ backs, her hands delivered the babes he put upon the local women, her hands set the bones of the men who survived the wars he courted.
Upon receiving a mortal blow, it was his turn to demand her help.
He wished to be immortal, undying, to rule the Land for ever and have it bend to his will for eternity.
’ The shapes in the pool were seen to argue, a watery hand reaching to wind, harshly, into the wise woman’s hair.
‘She refused.’ Kensa flinched, the pain splintering through her, as the Bucka’s own fist tightened. ‘He persuaded her.’
From his tone, he had not done it kindly.
‘Even then, she tricked him,’ said the Bucka. ‘Promised him unending life if he would forsake the Land for the Sea. King Gerent was greedy and knew the waves to be a powerful force, so he agreed to the Pact.’
In the wise woman’s hand appeared a blade. Although it was translucent, Kensa recognised its shape. Her watery double slashed at the king’s throat, which ripped open to become the pooling saltwater.
‘Now he would live for ever, yet not as he envisioned. She had bound magic along with the sea and King Gerent was trapped within both, never knowing peace from the tide. Finally, he was forced to serve the people he’d abused; send the day’s catch to them, cradle their ships or pluck a sailor’s wind from his lungs when he was too far from shore to live.
’ Even this the Bucka showed them. ‘At first, he brought storms to lash the coast, surging as high as the wise woman’s home though not one met their mark, for the Pact offered protection. ’
In the pool, the wise woman was depicted on a clifftop, hands raised to quell a tempest. Years spun around her, features twisting, changing throughout time, shifting sex and height and skin, until one became Isolde and, after her, Kensa, standing there to keep back the waves.
Curious, the real Kensa approached her brine counterpart – evading her sister’s hand – and met its cold stare with her own.
‘For as long as a wise woman preserved the Land and protected its peoples, the King would be tied to the Sea and its monsters.’ The Bucka grimaced. ‘I do not sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot recall joy or pain or living. I am unending and bittered with time. Through you, witchling, I can end it.’
The counter-Kensa in the water reached out to her fleshy double.
Behind her, shifting up through the water, mouth agape and screaming, came a monstrous form – a sea-hag – who tore the pool apart.
It was an unstable foam and liquid-boned mass, surging and bubbling and wrenching the pool apart.
Quickly, the water – and the sea-hag with it – fell back to a flat surface with not so much as a ripple to stir it.
‘If a wise woman causes deadly harm to the village she is bound to protect, the Pact will fail,’ said the Bucka, holding the bone-handled knife close to his face.
Kensa willed him to slice his own pointed nose open with it.
‘As soon as your creature kills, which she surely will, everything shall end, and it will be your doing.’
Elowen hissed through her teeth, though kept her back flush to the copper-stained wall.
‘If you want to die, I’ll fix it,’ spat Kensa.
The Bucka took her at her word. He vanished, fading to vapour, then materialised a mere foot away from her.
The weight of water in the air soaked Kensa’s hair anew.
He grasped her hand, pulled it to his and pressed the knife – that bone handle – into her palm.
She gripped it, hard. The Bucka was impossibly strong as he wrenched her fingers up, clawing coat and faded layers aside, to press the blade’s point at his chest. Kensa needed no further encouragement.
She was tired and cold and scared. He was monstrous and cruel and frightening.
‘There,’ he said, thumb pressed to her knuckle. ‘Come tear through breast and bone, see what good a heart of barnacle gets you.’
He was too close. Breath rigid and icy, like the sea at night upon her.
Kensa could not do it. For as much as she wished him ill, she could do no harm. It was not in her nature and he knew it. She pulled back, fighting to loosen his hold.
He let her go.
‘I cannot die, as the ocean cannot die,’ said the Bucka finally.
No sooner did he disappear from her sight than he appeared behind her again.
Chain-linked droplets encircled his wrists and tethered him to the water, as slim as a spider’s craft and stronger.
‘As soon as I met you, child, I knew it would be you who’d undo what was done centuries ago and free me from the Pact,’ he said.
‘You are arrogant, as I was arrogant. It is your undoing as it was mine.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ said Kensa desperately.
He looked at her with pity, and for a moment she wished she had stabbed him.
Elowen had not budged an inch, though pursed lips showed her shrewd mind turning. ‘What will happen without the Father of Storms?’
‘War, I suppose,’ said the Bucka indifferently. ‘Those surviving Folk who fell with the ebbing sea will reclaim the shore that was theirs. Soon, there will be nothing to keep the deep’s predators from making prey of men.’
‘How can you do this?’ Elowen’s anger was startling. ‘You’ve had a thousand years to become less selfish and you’ve only become worse.’
‘If I could do this without spilling blood, I would,’ said the Bucka regretfully.
Only then did he change his focus, shifting to stare at the youngest in the chamber as though she had arrived at that very moment.
‘Does your family know what you are? Born with too much salt, fey-blooded, siren-bound.’
‘Leave her alone,’ Kensa growled. Her attention shifted briefly to her sister, to find her lips parted and brow furrowed in worry.
Because here was a secret, one neither had touched or fully understood.
Although there was shock in hearing it bandied about so openly, Kensa schooled her face into neutrality, into acceptance, into whatever she thought Elowen needed.
‘It is getting late and the sun is setting,’ said the Bucka, though how he knew, none could tell. ‘Your hag does not tolerate sun. When the horizon dims, she will find her way out and sate her appetite and the Pact will break.’
Kensa shook her head. ‘Isolde would never hurt anyone.’
‘She wouldn’t, yet this creature would; a corruption of existence, a living grief come to enact its woes.’
The sisters exchanged looks.
‘How long do we have?’
The Bucka’s cheek twitched. Tension drew on his shoulders. In that minuscule gesture was apprehension, which stripped his severity to nothing. He became a lost young man, his soul blunted by a crown’s merciless weight. That did not mean Kensa could forgive him.
‘It could be hours, no more than a day,’ he surmised, closing his eyes. ‘Do you think I will feel it, when it happens, or will it simply end?’
Kensa edged closer to Elowen, who leaned her head towards the tunnel, towards their freedom. Would they reach the cottage before nightfall? Kensa could not hazard a guess. There was no measure of time here. Only darkness, the water, the eel-light and the Bucka.
As though waking from a dream, the Father of Storms heard their careful, cautious feet on the stone, saw Elowen’s hand reaching for Kensa’s.
‘You cannot leave how you entered, not without drowning,’ he said. ‘It is high tide and we must let the hag do her work.’ His frown deepened. ‘I would – I think I would see the sun set upon the waves one last time.’
Kensa reached for him. ‘Wait!’
That was all the farewell he offered as he stepped into the pool and was gone.
The sisters dared not move, lest he return. He did not. After several long moments had passed, Kensa said, ‘Stay here until low tide, then get help.’
Elowen snatched for her sleeve. ‘You heard him! You’ll drown!’
‘I can’t stay here and wait, can I?’
‘There’s another way out,’ said Elowen, blinking quickly.
‘In the pool is a long tunnel leading to Porthbeor Mine.’ Her hand fidgeted with her braid.
‘You’ll ask how I know and I’ve nothing to tell you, only that I do and always seem to know what no one else does.
’ She fixed her eyes on Kensa’s, nostrils flaring.
‘I never blamed you for hating me. I thought, somehow, you knew what I was, that Isolde had told you.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Kensa shook her head. ‘I never hated you.’
‘Please, trust me,’ said Elowen.
There was no chance to stop her. No sooner had she spoken than Elowen ran, straight into the pool, blonde head diving down towards the eels who parted at her approach.
In their sallow sheen was another tunnel, exactly as she’d described, which the younger woman swiftly swam into.
Cursing under her breath, Kensa sheathed her knife and went in after her sister.
Below, a rumble began. The kraken sensed their movement.
Despite her weariness, muscles clenching, Kensa propelled herself faster, into the tunnel, behind her sister.
The eel-light faded. Around them was nothing.
A dead end and it would be their dead end.
Worse, no one would ever find their bodies.
A cold brush met her ankles: the kraken.
The Pact kept it at bay, yet how long for?
Its slim tentacle began to curl towards her legs as she groped forwards, grazing Elowen’s calf, then her hand, which met hers and began to pull, lifting her out – out into fresh, cold air.
She only realised they had company, and that more than Elowen’s hands gripped her, when the first lantern bloomed against the dark.
Hard feet slapped on stone, a shout, a heave, ‘Drehevel!’ A bulky fist pulled her up by her armpits. She was dropped, unceremoniously, beside her sister and beneath the austere disapproval of the mine’s overseer.