Page 24 of Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear

They didn’t move any higher, didn’t regain any of the ground they’d lost, didn’t even stop falling, but it felt like they slowed down, and so she kept kicking. It might not be doing any actual good. It was better than doing nothing.

The wall of stone that held up the city was getting closer to them. It was clearly more of an underwater mountain than a sheer cliff. Nadya began kicking toward it, holding the woman against her, trying to reach something she could hang on to. A fish flashed by, one of the largest she had ever seen, moving with the ease she normally saw only near the surface, and it was getting harder to breathe. The water was definitely heavier here.

The idea of drowning in the river where she lived was ridiculous to her. It was stupid, it was impossible, and it wasgoing to happen if she didn’t move very quickly and get very lucky. She kicked again, harder than before, reaching out with her right hand to grab the wall.

Balls of rain were falling all around them, too heavy to join with the river. A string of them flowed into her hand, coalescing into a long rope with a loop at one end. Nadya took in a sharp breath, coughing as the increasing heaviness of the water stung her lungs and the back of her throat, and hurled the loop as hard as she could at the wall.

She had never lassoed anything in her life. She didn’t even know the name for the tool she was attempting to use. There was no grace or elegance to the move, no sign that she had any idea what she was doing, and so no one could have been more surprised than she when the “rope” snagged around an outcropping of rock. She tightened her hold on the woman and stopped kicking as they fell, allowing the rope to snap taut and swing them up against the wall.

Impact wasn’t as hard as it would have been if they’d been falling in the air of the world where Nadya had been born, but was hard enough to be jarring and make Nadya’s teeth rattle. She managed not to lose her grip on the woman, and shecouldn’tlose her grip on the rope, which was connected to her hand in a way that made it more like a finger than an actual tool.

Holding that comparison firmly in mind, she began pulling herself up the rope, pausing every few seconds to think about how nice and convenient it would be if the rope were shorter, if she didn’t have to worry about dropping back to the place where they first stopped. Her shoulders ached, her torso felt tight and too small, the effort of the climb reverberated through every inch of her body, and still she climbed,even as the woman she held so tightly against her began to whimper and stir.

When the woman opened her eyes, she screamed.

Nadya winced. “Stop that. You’re right against my ear.”

“Y-you’re Inna’s girl,” said the woman, still terrified. “The scout.”

“Yes, and right now we’re both very far from the city, although straight down isn’t usually a direction I scout in!” Nadya continued pulling them along. The rope wasn’t pooling in her hand or dangling beneath them; it did indeed seem to be getting shorter at her silent command. That was something. “Can you hold on to me if I let go?”

The woman shrieked and thrashed. “Don’t let go, don’t let go!”

“I’m not going to let you fall, but this would go faster if I could pull us up with both hands,” snapped Nadya. “Can you hold on?”

The woman hesitated, then snaked her arms around Nadya’s neck, clinging so tight that for a moment, Nadya couldn’t breathe. Then the woman slackened her grip and Nadya exhaled, relieved, before saying, “Good,” unwinding her own arm from around the woman, and beginning to pull them upward with both hands.

Itwasfaster this way, and in short order they had reached the outcropping where her rope was snagged, and she was able to pull them onto the narrow ledge. They fell no farther. She looked up. The wall was sheer and impassable. Nadya sighed, watching as the rope melted back into her arm. “We may be here awhile,” she said. “I suppose you’d best tell me your name.”

12BACK THROUGH THE FLOODED FOREST

NADYA AND THE WOMAN(whose name was Anichka; she was a farmer, and had been bringing in the herbs and simples from her garden when the storm swept her off the dock and began her fall) sat and talked for what felt like hours before there were lights above them, and voices shouting Nadya’s name. She leapt to her feet, waving her arms in the air.

“Here! We’re here!” she called.

Several great turtles descended, all larger than her beloved Burian, all equipped to swim these depths without losing control. Ivan the harbormaster sat astride the largest of them, a harpoon in one hand and a lantern in the other. Inna was on another, the first time Nadya had seen the woman who had become in all ways her mother astride a turtle. She blinked. Inna pressed a hand to her breast, staring at Nadya like she had never seen anything so wonderful. Nadya offered her a smile in return.

Anichka shrank back against the stone wall, suddenly shy, as Nadya stood and pulled her to her feet. “Have you come to get us?” Nadya asked, intentionally insouciant.

Ivan smiled. “No. We just wanted to see how far you’d fallen, and now we’ll leave you here. Of course we’ve come to get you, foolish girl. We would have come faster, but the we had to allow the storm time to pass.”

“Alexi is very concerned,” scolded Inna. “Most men don’t care to see their wives go flinging themselves over the edge ofthe world. Come, we’ll have you back to him, and calmed, before we waste a moment more.”

“Come, Anichka,” said Nadya. She leapt from the ledge, catching the rope Ivan threw down to hold her, and let herself be pulled onto the back of his turtle, where he embraced her and looked her over for injuries, as Inna tossed a matching rope to Anichka. The turtles grumbled at the added weight, but as two passengers were less than the balance of a boat, they bore up well enough, and began swimming back toward the city, cutting smoothly through the weighted water.

The devastation of the storm became more and more apparent as they drew nearer home. Docks had been smashed, markets washed away, houses stove in by the weight of debris falling on them from above or whirled up by the currents raging below. Nadya stopped looking after she saw a young turtle crushed under a wall, motionless. They would be rebuilding from this for years, if not forever.

No, it couldn’t be forever. As they reached the level where she and Alexi lived, and she saw him standing outside their house, twisting a rag between his large, well-loved hands, a worried expression on his face, she knew it couldn’t be forever. There had been storms before. There would be storms again. They would rebuild, ever and always.

Ivan kissed her forehead and pushed her toward her husband, and she paddled across the short distance between them, arms and legs churning to keep herself from falling through the thin water, which was never meant to hold a human up for very long. His eyes lit up, and then his whole face with them, and he dropped the rag as he opened his arms and welcomed her home again.

They broke their kiss when Inna’s turtle brought her to a level with their faces. “You will go and apologize to Burianfor frightening him so,” she said. “And you will come to dinner with us tonight, to talk about why you are a foolish girl who shouldn’t risk yourself for others when there’s any other choice.”

“But there wasn’t, Inna,” said Nadya. “Anichka was falling, and there was no one else to jump.”

“That may be so, and she seems a lovely lady, but you are my daughter, and my concern is for you before any other.”

“Thank you, Inna.”

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