Heart Rot

❹ - FOUR

The landing was enough to force the breath from his lungs. A skin of water webbed his mouth, filled his ears. Caught in a net of bubbles without an up or down, he lashed out randomly, contacting nothing. The shock of the cold constricted his fingers into claws, tearing as though the water would give underneath them.

Then his hand struck air, and he struggled to drag the rest of himself above it. Sodden hair slicked down into his eyes, stoppered his ears. He managed to snatch one glimpse through the hanging curtain: the ridge loomed above, with the well underneath it pure shadow and his brother silhouetted on top, kneeling and stretching out a useless hand towards him, as though he could pull him back up now. His mouth moved, but a wave slopped against Tliichpil's head and wiped out whatever the sound was. "Co -" he tried to call back but was submerged again, dragged down by the weight of his sodden tunic and aprons.

He splashed desperately, but the river was too strong. Under the ridge he passed, into the black line, roar growing. The current swelled and latched around his ankles, and there was only enough time to think oh, no, before it dove and hauled him with it.

The world blackened instantly. He tried to snatch a breath, got a mouthful of foam. Eddies flung his limbs around like a wool-roving doll. His right arm slammed painfully into a spur of rock, a vibrating jolt numbing it to the fingertips. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe - another current dragged him underneath again, the pressure a copper band fixed around his chest. The water had been caged by the weight of its greater upriver body here within the stone, and, just like any other animal caged, it was not happy about it, its anger buffeting his head, hammering on his back.

He was going to die. It was going to kill him. Sun-soaked rivers were different, calmer, purer, could be swum or bathed in, because Hualma's power purified them day on day - but nobody dared to enter clefts or subterranean rivers or lakes, where his reach could not extend. Every soul that had not made it safely to his realm of Ilhuickan, of animal and tree and human, could percolate down into the waters and get trapped there in the dark, poisoned into wraiths by the tendrils of power Olin sent up.

Or perhaps more mundanely the river would force itself through a cleft so slender he could not pass through with it, and his body would stay pinned there by the current until it bloated and rotted entirely, and he would never get proper interment. Perhaps it wouldn't, and Comalpo would find him dead on the shore lower down.

The river tipped over a shelf, and he managed to get his face out, gasp one lungful. Another contact with an edge of stone, bright flashes bursting behind his eyes, rattling his teeth.

A drag over a ridge tore at his flesh. An instinctive scream rent from his mouth and the river seized the chance to thrust a hand in that too, burning into his sinuses and down his throat. Dizzy, choking, blinded, face and chest burning, he managed to think one fragment of a prayer, Hualma -

And then there was light. The frothy reflection from the plunge pool's bottom lifted him up, pushed him to the surface again. Too stunned to paddle, to move, he drifted motionless with the current over to the bank and bumped against the rocks, sending another flash of pain through his bruised face and shoulder.

"Pila!"

But they were grown. It was not really appropriate for Comalpo to be using that childhood nickname, he thought fuzzily. "Pila!" His brother crashed through the brush, clattered on the rocks. He fell to his knees before him in a shifting of stones against his face. "Oh, Pila, talk to me - oh, you're bleeding -"

"M'okay," he mumbled. "'M not -" Well, dead, really. After that, everything else was bonus. He clumsily pushed himself on all fours, realizing guiltily that lying there still was probably causing Comalpo more worry than it was worth.

"Oh, your head -" He reached out towards Tliichpil's sodden hair, and then drew his hand back. He recalled the rattling blow - it must have cut into his skin as well, for Comalpo to notice. "Did you break it?" No. Or maybe? How was he supposed to tell that?

His brother took his face between his hands. "Look at me."

He looked. Comalpo searched his eyes, looking for the slow focus or uneven pupils that would indicate a broken head. Evidently not finding anything, he moved his hands to his shoulders. "You're shivering."

"Wow, I wonder why." After all, it wasn't as though this river flowed all the way from the mountains, where there was sometimes even snow. As he had intended, Comalpo's shoulders slumped in relief at the quip.

Tliichpil hesitantly shifted to his knees, wincing at the movement. Comalpo had been right - thinned by the water blood trickled down to cover his right hand, and his shoulders, and his thighs, turning the white-and-blue edging of his tunic an ugly brown and making yellowish stains on the damp rocks under him.

"Just a second -" Comalpo clattered away again, and returned with a handful of plantain leaves. Tliichpil selected the biggest, held it against his shoulder, and pressed hard. He had always hated this - having to wait until his blood clotted, always wanting to peek and poke at it and reopening up any injury he had. But he shouldn't destroy his tunic even more than it already was.

After what felt like an interminable amount of time, he peeled off the leaf. No rivulet of blood ran down.

Comalpo scooped up another handful of water and poured it gently down over his arms, washing away some of the drying smears. "Can you walk?"

"I think so." Comalpo helped him to his feet. They made it across the bank and into the trees before his knees gave, and he sank to the base of a kapok tree.

"Pila -"

"I'm all right," he said. "I just -" His heart was thudding through every bruise, along his jawbone, in his ears - his body remembering terror, now that it wasn't immediately in danger. "Just need a moment." He wrapped his arms around his knees, laid his head sideways onto them. Comalpo put a hand on his back, rubbing circles like he was a spooked ass, which he guessed was pretty nigh the truth.

Gradually, his mind and heartbeat calmed. A finch twittered, somewhere up in the canopy above them. Eventually, when his body seemed willing to at least make an effort towards obedience again, he raised his head. "All right. I think I'm okay now."

Comalpo gave him a twisted-lipped look, but did not argue with him. He rocked himself back on his heels and then stood up, reaching down to offer a hand. They linked wrists, and Comalpo dragged him to his feet and proffered his spear. Still shaky, Tliichpil took it gratefully, and they slowly began the hike back to the village.