Chapter the Ninth,
The Third to Last Day,
In which the children hasten east.
I. Back and Forth
Ceder blew a strand of hair away from her face. Jai wiped a bead of sweat from his nose. Rowing was hard work. As they neared the shoreline the influx of the river made each pull on the oars more difficult than the last. When they reached the green archway—the threshold to the river—the sun was low in the west.
The archway was in fact a pair of grotesque statues of two ogres standing over the river, joining hands at the top as they squabbled over some prize which was no longer there. Their faces looked like mashed apples and their eyes and mouths misshapen holes dug out with a blunt spoon. They towered over the entrance to the river, their upraised hands fifty fins high. Why, who had been flying about happily for much of the journey from the castle, returned to Ceder’s ribbon nervously. Jai laid his knife on his lap, though he could plainly see the overgrown brutes were made of stone.
“Do you think they were alive once?” Ceder asked him.
“Sorid used to say ogres turn to stone in daylight,” Jai replied.
“That’s what I thought.” Ceder glanced at the sinking sun. “But what happens when it gets dark again?”
Tied to the ogres’ groping fingers were two ropes that hung parallel a fin apart, suspending a horizontal wooden board that drifted back and forth in the wind.
Seeing no guardian, Jai and Ceder tried to row under the archway, but the boat bumped soundlessly into solid air. Again they tried, not understanding what force prevented their passage, but the boat bounced back each time as if unwilling to venture under the statues’ outstretched arms.
Ceder tried knocking her hand on the invisible barrier; her fist rapped against the air without a sound, springing her knuckles away as if she had pounded on a drum. Apparently the wooden swing and the two ropes were the only objects which could pass freely between the sea and the river.
“Where is the guardian?” Why asked disdainfully. “These fish folk take their responsibilities far too lightly, if you ask me. The evidence just keeps piling up!”
“Do you think the statues are the guardians?” asked Jai.
Ceder shrugged, preoccupied; she turned to Why.
“Yes, my lady?”
“Can you see the red beam in the west? Is it still looking for us?”
The butterfly flew away to scout. When he returned he shook his head. “I believe it is too far away now. I see nothing at all.”
Ceder let out a sigh of relief and turned her attention back to the river.
“The signpost, the wishing well, the Coralute’s horse, the wall of the harbor,” Jai recounted, keeping tally on his fingers, though he was only holding up three, “I wish someone would just tell us what to do, for once.”
Astray stared intently at the sky, watching the comet’s progress. As the shooting star passed over the Sands of Syn the cub turned to the children and roared, urging them to get moving.
“This is the only thing that can pass under the arch,” said Jai, catching hold of the wooden board. “I guess that means we have to swing.”
“What makes you think one of us will be able to pass through?” asked Ceder.
“Only one way to find out.” With a foot on the side of the boat, Jai lifted the swing back from the boundary and tucked one leg in between the ropes.
“You’re going to slam face first into a wall of solid air,” stated Ceder. “You know that, right?”
“I almost hope I do,” Jai grunted, his eyes trained on the river. He jumped, stuck his back leg between the ropes, and bellowed an adrenaline-fueled “Woohoo!” as he sailed under the ogres’ arms and through to the other side. At the top his toes clipped the sky. All he could see were clouds.
He swung backwards to the boat, instinctively tucking his legs up to build speed. “Watch!” he called to Ceder, who was dumbstruck. Jai swung through the bottom and pumped his legs to build height, his feet skimming the water like shark fins.
“Watch me!” he shouted as he came back to the boat again, even higher. On his third time forward the swing rose parallel to the river and Jai let go all but upside-down. “AHHHHHHH!” he screamed, suddenly terrified. He flipped over twice with his arms flailing and landed head-down in the river. Ceder was horrified; the Coralute had told them the river was boiling hot, a fact which only now snapped back into her mind.
Jai popped up right away, grinning from ear to ear. “Come on in,” he called back to the boat. “Swing!”
She did not know what to say. “Isn’t it hot?”
“It’s a little warm, but it’s nice. Come on—swing!”
“I couldn’t!” she fretted.
“What? Why not? It’s fun! Come on.”
“But I don’t even know how to swim!”
“So? Neither do I.” Jai looked down at himself, noticing for the first time that he was treading water as naturally as a baby duck. “It’s easy—you’ll get the hang of it right away.”
“You have to help me onto the swing. I can’t jump on like you did.”
“Of course you can! Come on, Ceder!”
Ceder grabbed the swing apprehensively. She tucked one leg through as Jai had done. “I’ll let go on three, but you have to count for me.”
“Ready?” he asked her right away.
“…Ready!” she shouted.
“One!” sang Jai as Ceder took off without balking and flew forward, screaming—down, up, and back again to the boat, higher than where her head had been. “Two!”
Ceder shrieked and squealed as her toes mingled with the clouds. She threw her head back to see the sea below her.
“Four!”
“Jai!” she cried hysterically, laughing with delight.
“Sorry, it’s hard to count good when I’m using my hands to swim.”
Ceder let go of the ropes, diving off in reverse at the peak of her swing. She flipped once and did a half twist and another flip and dove into the sea without a splash. Jai could hardly believe his eyes.
When she popped up they swam together back to the boat. Passing through the invisible barrier from east to west—the direction of the current—presented no obstacle. With a boost from Jai, Ceder climbed aboard. “That was incredible,” she said as she helped Jai into the boat, “let’s go again.”
“It’s getting dark,” said Jai, replaying her perfect dive in his mind beside his own appalling attempt. “We should leave soon. For safety, I mean.” He tried to poke an oar under the archway, but the invisible wall was still in effect. “We need the stupid guardian!”
Astray leapt from the side of the boat onto the swing, using his momentum to glide through the threshold then back to the boat, mimicking the children.
“Watch this,” said Jai with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He grabbed the wooden board and gave the cub a zealous push, grossly overestimating the force required—the swing whipped forward like a sling and Astray went flying off on the far side like a slung stone, distantly tucking into a tiny ball and plopping pitifully into the river.
“Jai!” yelled Ceder.
Jai froze. “Oops.”
“Go get him!”
Jai grabbed the swing at once and leapt off the boat, sailing forward at full speed directly into a solid blockade of air. The swing continued forward while Jai peeled off the invisible barrier like an egg yolk sliding down a wall. He crashed into the sea upside-down, unsure which way to start swimming. A white oar appeared before his eyes. He grabbed on and Ceder hauled him back to the boat.
Astray was already sunning himself in the prow by the time Jai got up and oriented. The children looked at the swing. It was no longer empty. Rocking gently back and forth was a dead, green fish.
II. Wordless Delight
Ceder picked up Astray and held the cub close against her body to dry him off. Jai picked up his knife. The fish was staring straight ahead with lifeless eyes.
“It’s the Wishfish!” lamented Why. “We’ve been had!”
“It’s the Coralute,” said Jai, frustrated.
“Hello, again,” Ceder said politely.
“Hello, yourself!” snapped the fish “The Wishfish? I’ve never met a more pompous, ignominious idiot! The Coralute? What does that wrinkled old windbag have to do with me? Nothing! Now don’t just stand there, give me a push!”
Jai was not about to play along, especially if the not-quite-so-dead fish was going to pretend that they had never met all over again. “We need to get past. I’m guessing you’re the guardian—I should have seen that one coming. So will you help us or not? We might as well know up front.”
“No passing! Absolutely not! Under no conditions, whatsoever! That’s the rule! Has been for eight hundred years! Now push me!”
“Why should I?” said Jai. He had been warming up to the Coralute, but the way the fish was acting now made him instantly unlikable again.
“I can’t push myself, can I? Let’s go, sonny-boy! I’m not getting any younger, here.”
Jai thought for a moment, then nodded in acquiescence and pulled the swing back as high as his chin.
“Now we’re talking!” said the fish. “Use those weedy little arms for once in your life!”
Jai put the jagged blade of his knife against one of the ropes. “We don’t have all day.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of!”
“If you don’t let us pass, I’ll cut the rope.”
“Ha!” cackled the fish. “With what? That?”
Jai felt his hand buzz. He looked at his knife, which was no longer a knife at all, no longer sharp iron. It was a limp strand of wet kelp. He dropped it and stepped away from the swing, more than a little startled.
The wooden board swung forward unevenly and the fish hollered with boyish amusement. He slid off at the top and yelled “LookatmeI’mflyyyyyying!” before belly-flopping into the river.
Gulping down guilt, Jai looked to Ceder. Her level gaze might have meant anything. He gulped again.
The guardian swam back to the archway and leapt out of the water, landing on the swing. He fixed the children with a withering stare. “This is the entrance to the river, which runs from coast to coast. It is besieged on every bank with danger. I say besieged, blast it! You can see the Sands of Syn, can’t you? The last remnant of Syn. Do you know what that means, sonny-boy? Do you, girly-sue? I didn’t think so! Well, I’ll tell you what it means. Syn is the opposite of the open sea, an evil as untamable as wild fire, a monster no mortal weapon can match, though enough have been tried. But Syn turned to sand a thousand years ago, you’re thinking. Don’t be so sure of it!” Curling his whiskers, the fish grinned triumphantly as if he had defeated the children in a match of wits.
“You tricked us when you were the Wishfish, then you helped us when you were the Coralute, and now you’re acting like you’ve never met us before!” cried Ceder. “Is this all some big game to you?”
“Absurd! I am not the defender of Coral Wing. I am not the ambassador of the well. I do not serve the fancies of the young. I am the Oldest Fish in the Sea. I guard the river, the most important job of all! Now show some respect for your elders!”
“How can guarding a river be more important than presiding over a wishing well?” asked Ceder, hoping to lure the disgruntled guardian into revealing something helpful. “How can it be more important than commanding an entire army?”
“If you read more, you wouldn’t have so many ignorant questions! Do you even know where the river goes, girly-sue? Did they tell you what lies beyond the red desert, did they warn you? Do you know where the river will take you?”
Neither of the children could quite bring themselves to ask where.
“The river will take you home,” said the fish. “It flows to the base of a mountain where the water runs red with fire, fed by the dark hand of Sorid Sunclaw. He will be expecting you, the Magician, if you go the river. He will call you to come home.”
“The King and Queen wouldn’t have sent us here if that was so,” said Jai, though his voice cracked as he spoke and his arms were peppered with goosebumps. “Why should we believe you?”
“Ripples and tides, surf and spray, they are all different, but none is different from the sea itself. We fish—we old, wise fish—we know that a bubble from the bottom of the sea can never sink a boat. Good swimmers leave no waves.”
“You’re just making up nonsense, now,” said Jai.
“So what if I am? I am the Oldest Fish in the Sea, I can do whatever I please!”
“What do we have to say to get this over with?” asked Ceder.
“Girly-sue, there’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already heard.”
“Then what do we have to give you? Do we have to pay a toll? ‘Nothing in the sea is free,’ right?”
The fish appraised Ceder with a keen eye. “I doubt very much you have anything in your grubby pockets that I should value.”
“Then what do you want?” cried Jai.
“I want to fly,” spat the Oldest Fish in the Sea, his voice full of contempt. “Can you give that to me? I didn’t think so!”
“That’ll be the day!” laughed Why, earning a nasty glare from the guardian.
“But fish can’t fly,” pleaded Ceder.
“What’s that?” asked Jai, pointing under the archway. There was something shiny in the water—a white flower petal drifting away from the boat through the invisible wall and into the river.
The fish turned to see what they were all looking at. “Quickly! Hurry up! Push me! Now!” he cried, his bulging eyes locked on the escaping petal.
“Let us through, first,” insisted Ceder.
“Pass, then, pass, confound you! Just push me, now!” Ceder drew back the swing and flung it forward as hard as she could. The guardian whooped like a boy on his first sled ride, “Watchmeflyyyy!” as he sailed off the swing. He landed directly on top of the floating petal.
The Oldest Fish in the Sea burst out of the water into the sky, flying with a pair of bright, white wings on his back. He cackled like a madman and wailed with wordless delight. Then he was gone, diving into the clouds.
Speechless, Jai and Ceder watched him fly away. They turned to each other, then to the swing, and finally to Astray. The cub’s jet black form was no longer the wispy shadow it had been for the better part of the day; every hair on his body was as starkly clear as the dark disc of the moon during an eclipse.
Astray roared and the children hopped to. They each grabbed an oar and, with a coordinated effort, guided the boat into the river. The invisible barrier was gone. Astray pounced into the prow with Why riding atop his head. The cub’s dark mane and the butterfly’s violet wings rippled in the wind.
As they passed underneath the arch of the ogres, Jai held the abandoned swing out of Ceder’s way—a gentleman holding the door open for his lady. “Welcome to the Land of Lin,” he said to her.
She looked up at him with wonder in her eyes.