Silent Cries

"Well, I suppose a rest will do us good. We've still got the forest to get through."

Allun grunted.

"It's a shame that the map didn't spell out these kinds of things beforehand. No 'here be spiders' or 'beware of spirits.' I mean, even the Maris use sea charts with sea serpent pictures."

Allun grunted.

"Poor Rowan and John though…I do hope they'll be alright…I'm sure John will cope, but…"

Allun grunted.

"Allun?" Marlie asked. "Are you awake?"

Allun grunted a fourth time. But it was a louder grunt, and so she took it as a "yes." As well as a sign to stop talking. Because they'd just crossed the swamp again, for all the horrors that had entailed. They still had to cross through the forest, a slightly less daunting prospect, but a prospect that still entailed the presence of giant spiders. And upon their return to Rin, they would have to explain the reason for their return – that Allun couldn't swim, and Marlie was claus…clas…cles…well, whatever Allun had called it. Explain their presence, and how they had left John and Rowan behind to complete the quest to bring water back to the bukshah, and through that, saving the village.

Compared to all that, Marlie reflected, the forest would be a breeze. And yet since the swamp, Allun had been silent, speaking only in grunts as soon as they'd crawled out of the muck. She would have assumed that he'd been thinking along the same lines as her, had he not been in good spirits when they'd left the upper part of the mountain. Jokes about water, tight spaces, dragons, spiders, Val, Ellis and Bronden…typical Allun, but after what she'd been forced to, a routine that Marlie had enjoyed.

And then the swamp came. And everything had changed.

"Allun…" she began slowly, turning away from the fire they'd started. "You know we'll have to explain ourselves to the villagers."

"So will the others," he began. A bit more communicative than a grunt, Marlie supposed, but not quite up to standard. "Least we got further."

"Yes, but…" She sighed. She hated seeing Allun like this, and she hated feeling the way she did – turned back by a bloody tunnel. "Allun, what happened in the swamp?"

"What?"

"The swamp," she repeated. "You were fine until we crossed it again. And now…well…"

"The swamp spirits called out to me," he said.

"They were calling out to us on the way up," Marlie said. "You managed okay then. Well, after Sara. But poor Rowan was lured in, John actually confided to me about hearing Jiller and Sefton, and Bronden…well, we both know about Bronden. And Val, she-"

"I heard my father."

Marlie fell silent. She watched as Allun slowly got into a seating position, his eyes fixed on the fire.

"I heard my father," he repeated. "I hadn't heard his voice in over twenty years. And…he called to me, Marlie." He looked up at her. "Can you imagine what that's like? To hear the voice of someone you can barely remember? Whose voice you could barely recall over all those years?" He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "My mother…my mother I see every day. I thought if the spirits tried again, I'd have no problem, but…" His gaze returned to the fire. "The Zebak took everything away from me during the War of the Plains. The spirits did the same thing today."

Marlie bit her lip. She wanted to hold out a hand, to say it would be okay, but…well, that was a lie, and the spirits had done the most horrific of lies to her friend today. The spiders of the forest, they were honest in their horror. Even Sheba, for all her deception, had still provided the way up the mountain. But the spirits…even the Zebak, she would have preferred right now.

"What did you hear?"

Marlie looked up at Allun. "What?"

"In the swamp," her friend repeated. "What did the spirits use to lure you in?"

"I…" She trailed off. "It doesn't matter. We're beyond the swamp now."

"Just…tell me," Allun murmured. "If only to assure me I'm not going mad."

"I…well, my parents," she said. "They're both dead of course, but, well, there's no secrets in Rin are there?" She laughed awkwardly – Allun had kept his inability to swim a secret, and she felt terrible for seeing what it had done to him. What the village's culture had done to him, and in hindsight, what Rowan had gone through as well.

"How?" Allun asked. "I was only in Rin after the war. John, Bronden, Jiller…you…we were all children then."

"Well, my father was killed in the war," Marlie said. She swallowed – it was something she rarely thought about, but saying it now, after everything the mountain had done to her, it was all rushing back. "Spear through the heart, quite a nasty way to go from what Lann told me. And my mother, well, she died in that fever a few years back."

"I'm sorry," Allun said.

"Don't be," Marlie replied, glad to hear the words nonetheless. "The spirits are gone. We'll be in Rin by tomorrow night. And with any luck, John and Rowan will solve the water problem, so we'll never have to look twice at this bloody mountain again."

Allun laughed. The first time he'd done so in hours. But to Marlie, it felt like years.

So she smiled.

And that, in the company of her friend, she welcomed as well.