Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (top 5 books to read TXT) 📗

where he knew the surface existed, though he could not see it. For all its power, the light could not penetrate the surrounding darkness of the deep. Nothing to offer him a glimmer of that which he once knew and ungratefully walked in every day, blinded then as he was now.

A cold, tentacled touch lazed across his arm, setting Kellen to search for its source.

Where he thought to find Kanaloa returned to claim him, instead he looked into the familiar, emerald eyes of his earthly mother. Though Kellen warned himself that her face were only a mask, or bit of glamour magic weaved and worn by the lady of darkness herself, he welcomed Nyx and her motherly protection all the same.

Come, my son, she said, taking him by the hand to lead him onward. Swim with me awhile. The Cavern of Somnus awaits us, and soon enough we shall put all their doubting of you and their questions to rest.

How? Kellen wondered to himself, following Nyx lead into the darkened waters ahead. How am I ever to convince them that I’m supposed to be someone that I know I’m not?

Kellen could not guess the answers to his questions. He swam onward with Nyx at his side, his gaze eternally looking up to the leagues above, dreaming of the surface world from which he had plummeted. For all his constant wondering of how he might make it back to the sunlight and the shore, Kellen could not stop the haunting words of Marisa Bourgeois from playing in his mind on an endless loop.

The Salt has you in its sway now, Kellen Winstel . . . and you shall never escape.

Kellen shivered as he followed Nyx ever onward, all his former railing against the prophetic words lost to the same darkness and muted deep that the mystic Silkie had condemned him.

9

CHIDI

Nestled and cramped in the underbelly of Girard’s boat, Chidi stood over the kitchen galley’s small table, her gaze wandering over the various, Ancient symbols that Marisa Bourgeois had drawn from memory. Created of cut-up, paper clippings and Styrofoam cups, each symbol was different from the next. Marisa worked at aligning some groupings of the symbols to form scraps of worded chains. Chidi thought of their work together like searching among scattered pieces of a greater puzzle, and without the pictured box to reveal the ultimate design.

Whilst the mystic Silkie continued maneuvering some of the symbol groupings, Chidi chewed on her lower lip in attempting to discern that which Marisa seemingly saw in them. Unlike puzzle pieces with hints of colored hues to match alongside others, or else the squared off, end pieces to signify a border, Chidi could make no sense of the scattered symbols’ ultimate final placement among the rest. The longer Marisa carried on, the more Chidi thought of the paper and Styrofoam cutouts like a fool’s attempt at recreating the shattered remnants of an Egyptian, hieroglyphic-like wall.

She and Marisa had scarcely left the table during the previous three days of their voyage across the Salt, their only breaks coming when exhaustion took them, or else when Allambee reminded either of them to eat. For each time Chidi believed they had one of the symbols paired with a comparing letter in the Common language, their attempts to translate the meaning ended in non-sensical words, forcing them to trace their efforts back over and again in search of the true translation.

Despite their failings, Chidi’s mind would not release her from the mental task. She dreamt of the symbols, all of them swimming together each time she closed her eyes for rest. For every time she awoke after having nodded off, always Chidi found Marisa Bourgeois still laboring at the linguistic puzzle beneath a pale, thin light afforded to them from the overhead kitchen lamp. Chidi had yet to see the famed and elusive runner tire, though she frequently found Allambee asleep nearby.

Allambee snored softly on, rolling upon the makeshift cot that had formerly served as the table’s bench seat. Cocooned in a crimson, wool blanket as he slept, Allambee looked older to her eyes now than she remembered him being upon their first meeting outside of Chicago.

Yawning, Chidi put her fist to her eyes, attempting to rub her drowsiness away and refocus on the remaining pieces before her. She caught Marisa Bourgeois smiling back at her from across the table. “What?” Chidi asked.

“You look tired,” said Marisa.

“I am,” said Chidi.

“Shall I put the kettle on?”

“No,” said Chidi. “I’ll be fine. Just need some fresh air.”

“Go, then,” said Marisa. “I will stay and continue the work.”

Chidi remained. “Will we ever figure this out, Marisa? These . . . words and pieces.”

“In time, all things are possible,” said Marisa, her fingers flying across the bits of paper, continuing to fly them around and around the table-face before settling on a new location among the others, and then keeping on to the next.

Chidi grimaced. “You said we didn’t have much time . . .”

“We don’t,” said Marisa. “All the more reason that I will continue the work whilst you venture topside and take in some air.”

Chidi nodded, yet still hesitated to go.

“What is it, Chidi?” Marisa asked. “What troubles you now?”

“Many things.” Chidi glanced toward Allambee as he slept.

Marisa cued on her silence. “You fear for him . . .”

“I do,” she said.

“As he and David Bryant worry for you also,” said Marisa. “A true friend is rare enough to find. You are all fortunate to have found such treasures.”

I know, Chidi thought, continuing to watch Allambee, wondering if he slept as peacefully as he looked. She hoped he was not haunted by the same Salt terrors that roamed free in her mind at night. Rather than give rise to such ideas, Chidi distracted herself by studying Marisa’s movements.

The mystic Silkie’s hands moved with blinding speed to position the pieces, her face beset with a stoic nature that reminded Chidi of another friend and her former captain. “I want to ask