Chapter 256: Little Raindrop

James waited for her eyes to pass through him as everything else in that vision had done.

Naturally, that wouldn’t happen now.

The thread of light trembled on the stale water and in the black, a chain chimed, slow as a ship’s bell under the sea.

"Stranger... oh, at long, long last, a stranger."

Her voice was warm and unhurried. "Who art thou, that dost stride through my sorrow as though it were a common hall? Thou hast no name I know. Ah, but I cannot abide a nameless guest, then I must fashion thee one myself."

She looked him over like choosing ribbons. "Little ghost... nay, nay, ghosts are pale as milk, and thou art red as a boiled crab. Little ember? Pah, I have no love for fire. Little fish, then? Nay, fish never stare so boldly. Little wanderer..."

She sighed.

"...Nay, too solemn for you who grins like a fool at a fair."

James was grinning. He hadn’t noticed.

Her face brightened. "Little raindrop. Thou camest to me upon the scent of rain, and what is every mortal but a raindrop, falling brief and bright, and gone into the river before the sky has finished counting? Yes, that one is thine."

"Och, I’ve been called a good many things in me time, lass. Scoundrel, sot, worse, but never once little."

"Thou wilt grow into it, raindrop. Names are cut generous, that a person may fill them."

She sighed so deeply that the chains shook. "So many moons, and not one soul to name. All my magnificence wasted upon the drip, drip, drip of a raindrop."

James stepped toward her, while the stale pool made no ripple and gave him no chill.

He then curiously remarked. "Well now, as ghosts or goddesses go, lass, you keep a right poor house, one wee hatch of daylight and a wet floor. Still, you’ve gone and named me, so it’s only fair and proper I ask yours. What’s she called, a braw fine lass like yourself?"

She drew herself up as far as her ankles would let her and told her name like a queen naming a province.

"I am... Chalchiuhtlicue."

Each syllable landed like a stone dropped into a river while the water around her trembled.

"In the tongue of my people it means she of the jade skirt. Say it as it deserves, if thou canst."

James got halfway through it and lost the rest in a tangle. "Christ on a mast. No offence, lass, but I’ll be callin’ you Chally, or we’ll be stood here till Michaelmas."

She tried the name, one brow lifting. "Chally. Chally? Thou hast taken the whole of a river’s name and made a puddle of it. Yet I find I do not mind the puddle."

He walked the last few paces into the shaft of light and looked over her.

Chally’s hair fell past her waist in heavy waves, azure at the crown and green as a shoal at the tips. Her skin was warm river clay, beaded with damp, while a woven band held her chest, a jade choker lay at her throat, and a skirt of rippling green rode low on wide hips.

Her waist narrowed beneath the woven band into soft, rounded hips. The damp green cloth clung to one thigh, then loosened as she moved, offering a fleeting glimpse of the full curve of her backside before slipping loose again.

There was an unhurried fashion about the way she carried herself, as though she knew precisely what her body revealed and what it kept just out of reach.

Her bosom was full beneath the crossed cloth at her chest, their weight softened by the beads against them. Above them was a beautiful, round face and eyes that watched him with an almost playful patience.

It was gentle rather than sharp, her lips soft, her expression with just enough amusement to make him wonder whether she knew exactly where his eyes had gone.

Naturally, she noticed. "No soul hath looked upon me in longer than the world hath kept count. So take thy time, raindrop, drink thy fill, and then give me thy verdict."

"Beautiful eyes, of course, and that’s the God’s simple truth."

She preened, and ripples ran out into the dark.

His gaze went down to the iron around her ankles. Ring-bolts were sunk into the stone, their links pitted and green with age.

"Och... bloody hell."

For half a breath, his grin vanished. Then it came back.

"Want those off, lass?"

He said it as casually as if he were offering to open a window.

She blinked.

"Dost thou... dost thou know who I am? Truly? Or for what I am held?"

"I’ve a notion, from what I saw. Won’t pretend I’ve the half of it."

She laughed, low and delighted, and a heartbeat too long. "Were it but so simple as the asking... this dark would have emptied ages upon ages since."

James raised an eyebrow. "Then what in God’s name was all that, lass? I clapped a golden mask on stone in a chamber full of coffins, as you do, and next I know I’m wakin’ up here."

She looked up at him. "What thou didst touch, raindrop, was the lid of my cage. Mortals call it a tomb, for men bury only what they wish kept from walking. Through it, thou didst see what was done."

Her voice grew thin while her fingers closed around her wrist, exactly where a hand had once gripped it. "The Smoking Mirror hungered for what was never his to hunger for. He seized me, thus, while the Plumed One sat admiring his own face. Late, so late, the Plumed One came, and the doors were already shut... and the land... the land paid for it."

James let it lie.

"Ach, you needn’t tell the end of a tale you’d sooner not, lass."

She gave him a small, genuine smile, then put the performance back on.

The thread shivered. The black around the vision began to fray and a sharp pain tugged behind James’s ribs.

The flourish left her face.

"There is no time. The door thou hast opened is narrow, and it is closing even now."

She dragged her ankles a step across the wet stone.

The links chimed, and James moved closer.

"If thou wert in earnest about these chains, raindrop, then my debt to thee would outlive kingdoms. They were not forged simply, these irons. The Smoking Mirror locked me in with three keys."

"Three, is it?"

"He scattered them like seed upon the wind, to lands where my people’s feet could never follow. And all three must be brought together to the tomb that binds me."

"Aye, I’ve one already, lass, up in your chambers."

Her lips quivered. "Keys go where they are brought, raindrop, and I know not whose hands bore this one. Alas, I have almost nothing to give thee, only the gold above, for the lifting, a poor wage indeed for so vast a labor."

"That’ll do me grand."

She blinked.

"Foolish, foolish raindrop. Thou hast not even heard the price."

He grinned. "Price, is it? A bonnie lass in irons is payment enough for me, and I’ve an awful weakness for a good bother."

She laughed, astonished, and genuine relief raw ran beneath it.

Then she crooked a finger.

He waded in while for the first time, the pool rippled around his boots. She gathered him against her, arms around his shoulders, the beads of her collar cool against his cheek. Her softness pressed along him, the round heat of her hip against his thigh, and she smelled of rain and river clay and sweet resin.

Chally pressed her lips to his brow and held them there.

The gift came through the kiss. Two places, each with its own sky, its own color of tide, and its own smell of salt, both plainly of these seas. Then the vision folded inward from its edges and her hands slipped from his shoulders, while the links chimed.

"I’ll not be long, Chally."

James saluted her like a lady on the docks.

She laughed, great and rich and cracked in the middle. "To one who hath waited beyond the memory of kings, a few more turnings of the sun are but a single breath. Go, my raindrop. And I shall sigh, oh, magnificently, the whole while."

The vision went out like a snuffed lantern.

James hung in the black with her laugh ringing behind his eyes.

Then the shimmer gathered, and the display appeared.

It was the only light left.

⚔ [QUEST UPDATED]

Coils Within Coils > A Debt of Considerable Age

A woman has waited beneath a serpent-haunted house for longer than your country has had a name. Who else has taken an interest remains a thread nobody has pulled. Whether freeing an existence so old is courage or arrogance is not for me to say.

Reward : 50 Fate > 1000 Fate

Reward : ???

Reward : ???

I have raised the reward twentyfold, for reasons I intend to keep. You agreed before asking what she is, which I have filed under ’consistent.’ She is very old and has waited remarkably well, and the experiment would love to see how you ruin it.