Chapter art by the incredible giveitameaning!
When Gabrielle reached the river, if so it could be called, it looked small enough to leap over if one had a long enough lead up, but there was also a quiet sense of immensity to it. The water was crystal blue and clear, but so deep Gabrielle could not see the riverbed beneath. Water flowers, though none Gabrielle had ever known, dotted the surface and floated gently downstream. Startlingly smooth, the river’s surface was straight and unblemished but for the flowers, as if any ripples or waves had been sheared off. Staring at its beauty, Gabrielle realized she was unbearably thirsty.
It was an odd realization. Her mouth wasn’t dry, nor was her throat cracked, but she knew in an abstract way that it was crucial for her to drink from the icy blue water. For some reason she thought of tea, then shook the nagging thought off as extraneous. Slowly, she knelt at the river’s razor edge and lowered her head.
It was her reflection that kept her from severing her hands. As it was, her hair that fell to the water’s surface was sliced away, though she only felt the gentlest tug. Her hands, cupped and hovering above the river, shook slightly as she wondered at her likeness reflected in the water. Her skin was mottled green and blue and deep purple, like Erinlin’s Drowned, like Sellie, but the colors were deeper and darker than any she had ever seen. Eyes glowing gold like molten glass gleamed back at her, and hair silver and gossamer-fine floated around her head. Her antenna were back, feathery and curved, and her hands were covered in candle wax and gravedirt. Yet for all the changes, she knew it was still her own face that answered her gaze.
Then she felt a crushing noose around her neck and was yanked back hard onto the ground. Her fingers dug into the dirt as she struggled to breathe, and the pressure on her neck was quickly replaced by a sudden weight on her chest. As she gasped in a few breaths, she looked up at an angry frog glaring at her with pressed thin lips and narrowed eyes. Her wheezing began to sound more like ragged laughter before deteriorating into coughing. The frog remained sternly perched on her chest, its bulbous orange fingertips looking out of pale against the creamy wood of its long shepherd’s crook. Gabrielle struggled to make sense of the image, realized it was within her capacity if she could just force herself to focus, then gave up and blacked out.
When she came to, she had a few blissful seconds of not knowing where she was, which were rudely curtailed by the vivid orange moon and a deluge of her recent memories. She groaned and rolled over, and came face to face with a frog the size of a young sheep.
“You’re the dumbest Candlemaiden I’ve ever met,” it said.
“Yeah, well, you’re the ugliest frog I’ve ever seen,” Gabrielle replied in a rough voice, even though she had, in fact, seen less attractive amphibians. She had not, however, ever seen a frog quite like this one, who was sitting cross-legged with the shepherd’s crook planted in the ground beside him and a smug look on his face.
Gabrielle turned eyes back to the purple sky and clinically considered not getting up ever again.”How does everyone know I’m a Candlemaiden anyway?”
“You’re a living child in Death’s realm. You’re not wearing the the robe, but you’re certainly no Zaksmander, so what else could you be? Though I’ve never before met a Candlemaiden who would try to drink from the Alaethos river.” The frog chuckled, his voice low and throaty. “You’ve got me to thank for your hands, by the way. The river would have cut them right off.”
Gabrielle wanted to reply that the frog was being ridiculous, but she didn’t have the energy. Her mind kept returning to her skewed reflection, her long antennae and mottled skin. There had been an honesty to the image that had made the monstrous features almost compelling. Gabrielle was reminded of gnarled old trees, which still retained a stark beauty when wet and bare and scraggly. Then she remembered her yew tree at home who had kept vigil with her in the graveyard, and she sighed at the weight of weary sadness in her chest.
Responding belatedly to the frog, she raised her hands and examined them. “They looked dirty in the reflection. There was red candle wax under my nails.” Now her hands were as they had always been, pale and slender and calloused, scattered with silver crescent scars from where she had nicked herself with a knife. Something slimy squirmed in her chest as the Ladies’ Kiss appeared on her left wrist. She slammed her hands back to the ground and sat up swiftly.
“So, where am I? What is this river?” Her right hand rose unconsciously to run through her hair, as it often did when she was nervous, but balked at what it felt. “What happened to my hair?” Gabrielle tugged it into her field of vision. Her long hair had been sheared away diagonally, the shortest pieces up front barely reaching her chin. Then it seemed to taper, so that in the back it was as long as it had ever been. She stood up quickly and glared at the frog in wild accusation, though she wasn’t sure how or why he would have done such a thing.
He met her glare with a mix of exasperation and amusement. “Are you really that stupid? You’ve never heard of the river Alaethos? You don’t know what it does?”
“I may have heard of it,” Gabrielle said defensively, standing up as she tried and failed to conjure up the relevant knowledge. “I just… don’t know anything about it.” As his expression gained a tint of dGabrielleion, she felt the need to defend herself. “Look, I don’t know anything about this place, really. I was just trying to save a girl, or maybe she was a bird, from a river and I ended up here. Well, not here exactly. First I was in a village, and then I was in the Candlewood.” Gabrielle shuddered. Remembering the Candlewood was like fading a bit out of existence all over again. “And when I tried to leave, I was given this stupid quest and now I’m stuck here and I don’t know what to do and-” Gabrielle careened from the edge of tears to anger, “-and I don’t need some smug little toad with a ridiculous stick acting like he’s ten times better than me just because he knows something about a stupid river in a stupid realm that I don’t even want to be in.”
Gabrielle took a ragged breath and let blue-green flames flare up from her fingertips and swim up her arms. “Now here’s how it’s gonna be, toad. You can help me and be nice about it, or I will spear you on your own stupid stick and burn you to ugly ashes. Got it?!” Though Gabrielle didn’t know it, her eyes burned gold and her hair shone silver as she took out all her frustration and fear on the river guardian.
There was a tense pause filled only with Gabrielle’s deep breaths before the creature replied.
“I’m a frog, not a toad.”
Gabrielle felt her anger boil away, leaving only a fizzy giddiness behind. “Yeah, I know. Toads are bumpier. I was just being mean. You’re actually a very nice looking frog. I like how your hands are orange.”
“Thank you. It was very, um, impressive, what you did there with the flames.”
“Thanks. I wasn’t really sure it was going to work here.”
There was silence for a few heartbeats.
“So,” Gabrielle said, putting some joviality into her voice, “Can you tell me about this river Alaethos?”
The frog blinked. “Of course. It’s the third river of Death, the river of truth. The truth is sharper than any sword, right? Drinking from Alaethos is like drinking needles, or shards of ice, but it’s necessary to move any further in this realm. Well, necessary if you’re a shade. Fatal if you’re still alive.” The frog gave Gabrielle a reproachful look. “If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have lost your hands. The river is too potent to touch.”
“Then how do the shades drink from it?”
The frog grinned, his whole face distorted by his wide mouth, and dragged a passing flower to the shore with his crook. The flower had two curved slender stalks arcing out of its center, and when it was close enough, the frog pinched the two stalks and dipped the flower underwater. When he plucked it out of the water, Gabrielle saw that it held water like a cup.