Dream of a City of Ruin: Dreams of QaiMaj Book II

Chapter 11: Exhaustion: Stasia

Stasia

Stasia awoke to the sensation of drowning, smothered in a heavy wetness. She struggled against it, trying to pull herself out of the water. It was difficult to breathe, and her thoughts swam as though in a soup. A sodden hide covered her body, holding her in place. She could not lift her head for weariness. When she managed to open her eyes, a brilliant light flooded her vision.

"Shhhh," said a soft voice. "Lie still. Shhh. It is ok."

"I Dreamed the Khell were in the City of Ruin," she said aloud. "The traveling camp was erected in its streets, and Kaliri was braiding my hair on a building roof. We will find your people, Maia."

She lay in the basket of the polloon. Maia's face hovered over her, the long braids tickling Stasia's cheeks, and she put a chip of ice into Stasia's mouth. The cold morsel soothed her dry throat. The sun was up again, and the air was hot. She remembered her over-use of T'Jas during the storm, and wondered how many vaerce she had left, but she could not muster the strength to unwrap the hides to check. It hardly mattered; she could tell by her own weakness that the end was near.

Dynat stood on the polloon's rim, looking outward. He had discarded his hides and his golden scale garments gleamed in the bright light. He looked strong, almost radiant, the opposite of how she felt. A shiver of hate ran up her spine. How dare he look so happy in the face of her impending death?!

Bitter anger faded quickly; she was too weary even for that. Acceptance and compassion flooded her. Perhaps it was because she was so near the edge of death. She could not forgive him. But she was ready to stop fighting.

Dynat entered her mind without invitation, but she did not protest as he filled her with information. Maia was helping him use the position of the sun to return to the same heading that they had been on before the storm, but they could be far to the east or west of where they had started. It was possible, Maia said, that they would miss the land to the north altogether and drift on the water until their supplies ran out.

They were moving drastically slow, and supplies were low already. Maia had had the foresight to crush the remains of the melting ice and capture it in leather bags, but there was only enough to last a day or two. The mussels had all fallen overboard during the storm. The polloon was tired, hungry and obstinate; the water here was too deep for it to draw a meal. Its basket meandered on the surface of the water, the float above wilting as its seaweed fuel ran out. Dynat was pulling huge amounts of T'Jas from the sun, creating a meager breeze to push the polloon along the water.

You will exhaust yourself, Stasia worried to him. He did not have vaerce to tally the loss, but if drawing T'Jas from the sun was anything like drawing it from the storm, Dynat should be aging as rapidly as she.

You are wrong, he replied. I do not feel exhausted. I feel more alive than I ever have before. I still believe it will help you, if you draw it.

Stasia shook her head and even that tiny movement exhausted her. She lay in her meager shade and entered a shallow, broken sleep, dreaming ordinary dreams of drifting on a boat in Lake Lentok.

She did not rise that night to steer the polloon. While Dynat slept, they drifted aimlessly. For the next two days, they floated in the vast waters, unsure where they were or where they were going. Stasia dreamed of nothing at all. Her breathing became a labored, agonizing thing. She fidgeted in the bottom of the basket, unable to get comfortable, but every movement she made was tiring. Even with Dynat keeping her oriented in her mind, her thoughts drifted as aimlessly as the polloon.

When the sun was directly overhead on the seventh day since they had left Khell, Stasia saw an image cast into her mind by Dynat. A thin, dark line floated where the water met the blue ceiling. As he steered the polloon closer, the water below went from grey-green to deep blue, then a softer blue clear enough to make out the bottom. Huge, dark patches of seaweed stretched across the bottom and bobbed on the surface. The polloon stopped and began to feed. As it expelled tiny fish and crustaceans, Dynat and Maia fed too, gorging on the sudden wealth of food. Maia chewed raw fish until it was soft and then fed it to Stasia, but she could not hold it down.