Did River speak to all her creatures so, in the spawn and near the end? Fill their Spirits and blind their eyes so nothing remained, in the end, but Her?
Tokela snarled against the swirling water, an uncompromising biddance: Not in thisnow. Be still thisnow.
She obeyed.
Somehow, he realised, They had always obeyed.
The breath rushed from him in a burst of bubbles, reaction swift as a blow against his ribs. They? Always. Obeyed? What?
He breached the surface like a gasping water horse, paddled there in shock for several heartbeats.
“All right?” Akumeh called down.
Tokela peered up from mists and foam and saw his playmate taking a wrap on the traces, just in case. Four other sets of wide eyes peered down—even Madoc, trying his best to seem disinterested.
Tokela made a knocking motion with his fist—an affirmative—then took Wind into his lungs and dove deeper. His teeth bared, resolute, and he forced his heart to clarity, listening to River with open eyes and wide-spread fingers.
He found the weir. It wasn’t where it should be. A new-broken outthrust of stone had trapped the weir in an underwater slide—as well as the large catch of fishKin that would die for no good reason unless Tokela freed them.
It took several tries, and several upwards breaches to take air, but he managed to coax most of the debris away. Milt and mud, gravel and the smaller of the stones—none of those overlarge, and the tumbling water assisting him, carrying away what he cleared. Several hand signals enlisted Akumeh’s strong arms on the traces to help shift a few stubborn stones. A tilt here, a tug at the line for Akumeh to pull, a push during those pulls. All of it showered silt over the netted fishKin.
Yet still, the weir wouldn’t come loose. Wind growing stale in his lungs, Tokela twisted and reached, felt the trapped fishKin flutter against his forearms, felt the nettings against his fingers… but he could only go so far. His hands had broadened since last Hoop’s spawning. They wouldn’t fit.
Finally he broke the surface, motioning for the climbing rope. Anahli already had it secured to a tree with a neat horsetalker knot akin to the ones used upon River. She tossed it down and, grabbing hold, Tokela made his way upwards. Akumeh grabbed Tokela’s knife harness and hauled him the rest of the way atop the bluff.
“Did you free it?” Kuli asked.
“Quiet, ahlóssa,” Akumeh chided, putting an arm about Tokela. “Even Otters must be allowed to catch their breath after a long dive.”
Panting, Tokela scrubbed the wet locks from his face and let Akumeh support him. It was rather nice.
It was also a distinct pleasure to see Madoc puffing up like a mad watercock. But not as fierce as the knowledge they were all, in this heartbeat, deferring to him. It cleared his thoughts; freed the talk that oft would tangle in his throat.
“The weir’s still trapped somehow,” Tokela sat up. “The rocks pinning it are all gone, yet it won’t come free. I can’t reach any farther to find the cause; my hands are too big. Madoc, yours too. Laocha, I know you swim very well. Was Kuli boasting overmuch, or does he truly swim better than you?”
Kuli was starting to grin; it was Madoc, this time, who flipped a smack to the back of the cinnabar head.
“Ai, he does,” Laocha admitted. “He might be a’Šaákfo, but River carries him as Her own.”
“My hands are small,” Anahli said, holding one up, splayed in the mist. Tokela laid his against hers as measure—he’d not realised it, she was slim as he, but taller, made of all muscle and sinew—but her hands indeed were narrow, with short palms and long fingers. She laced those fingers with his, eyeing him. “I swim as well as Kuli, better perhaps.”
“Aww,” Kuli began to whinge. Tokela gave him a stern look.
“Enough,” Anahli told her brother. “It’s decided.”
Akumeh rose, offering Tokela an arm up. “Madoc, you’ll see to the lines with me. Laocha, Kuli, we’ll need your sharp eyes to watch out for Tokela and Anahli.”
Anahli started for the edge.
Tokela halted her. “You’ll climb down. You don’t know this fall as I do.”
She started to protest, instead smiled, lifted her chin, and straddled the rope.
THE WEIR was heavy. And the falls tried to toss and spin her like a feather upon Wind.
Glad her assessment of her swimming ability hadn’t been any idle boast, Anahli followed Tokela, watching the tilt of his head, hands, and the direction of the indigo eyes a-gleam in the murk. Twice more they surfaced, exchanging signalled directions and gathering enough of Wind’s breath to keep them, then went deeper, circling the trapped weir. Tokela snatched at the ropes and then Anahli as a strong current buffeted them sideways. Anahli climbed his arm, grabbed the ropes and hung on.
They crawled hand over hand towards the weir, Anahli creeping into place where Tokela motioned. Once they got past the initial drop of the fall, the lull of pressure and current was astounding: the water drifting in an almost-lazy spiral just above the weir. Anahli reached in, past the wriggling fishKin and farther, to the tangle of line and webbing that disappeared into silt and stones. She pushed back, motioned to Tokela. He jerked his head, and she followed him up and over the weir, surfaced behind the falls. A mist-filled alcove lay there—an amazing place, both shelter and council. The falls’ roar was only slightly muted; nevertheless, the alcove seemed quiet.
“I felt it!” she panted. Her voice echoed huge in the small space, bouncing off water and stone. “The back of the weir’s stove in. The line’s all tangled with the netting, and there’s more debris holding it there.”
“Can you free it?”
“It’s very tight. Even an ahlóssa would have trouble.”
Tokela’s brows squinched into a frown; he blew and thought for several heartbeats. “What if Akumeh takes up on the lines to pull
