Flux

rushed by beneath him, Miner felt as if he were flying. He felt giddy with it, excited despite his apprehension. It was impossible for him to tell where they were headed, except he knew it was away from the shore, and the water seemed to be getting gradually deeper. Soon it was so deep he couldn't even see the bottom. The water grew rougher, the surface churning instead of mostly placid. They must have left the harbor, he thought. Now they were out in the open sea.
    He wasn’t scared. Perhaps he’d simply been through too much over the last several hours and he’d depleted his store of fear. A dozen or so large shapes converged upon them and Miner realized they were dolphins, and when the dolphins began to cavort about them like puppies frolicking around their masters, Miner actually laughed. Bubbles billowed upward from his mouth and, slightly startled, the mer-people turned to look at him. They didn’t slow down, however.
    Miner’s mind must have been shattered by his adventures, because when they steered into shallow water and reduced their speed, he actually felt disappointed. He was willing to believe that this entire experience was likely an elaborate hallucination, that even now he was sitting in the slave pen and drooling on himself. If so, he didn’t want the hallucination to end.
    His strange honor guard continued to accompany him as the sandy sea floor came closer and closer, and only when he could nearly touch the bottom with his feet did the dolphins swim away and the mer-people release their holds. He floated there, feeling oddly bereft and unsure whether he really wanted to return to land. But then someone else was there, grabbing him around the waist and towing him to shore.
    A moment later he lay gasping on a beach and there—oh gods! “Ennek!” he said with a watery sob.
    Because it was Ennek, bearded and wet and drawn-looking, and he was pulling Miner into his arms and embracing him and they were crying against each other. Maybe this was only more delusion, but Ennek felt solid enough, warm and strong against Miner, and he smelled real: slightly salty like Ennek always was, but sweet, like baking bread.
    When their sobs had subsided to sniffles, Miner drew slightly away. Ennek looked awful, his hair a riot of tangles, his skin stretched too thin over his bones and his beard very dark against his pallor. He wore the same clothing Miner had seen that last day at the palace, but it was now torn and bloodstained. Yet to Miner, he was the most beautiful sight.
    But as Miner was looking at Ennek, Ennek was doing the same to Miner. Ennek’s usually full lips grew thin as he took in Miner’s nudity, as he saw the leash that still hung limply from Miner’s neck, leaving smudges of brown dye on his chest. But when he saw how prominent Miner’s ribs were, how Miner’s skin was sunburned and scraped and marred by yellow and purple bruises, Ennek’s jaw clenched so tightly Miner could almost hear it creak.
    “What did they do to you?” Ennek growled.
    “They…. It doesn’t matter now, does it, En? Gods, how did you…. What happened?”
    Ennek didn’t answer. He pushed Miner a little farther away from himself and conducted a more careful examination of him, cataloging every mark, his face growing redder and redder.
    “It’s all right, En. I’m free now.”
    But it was as if Miner hadn’t even spoken, so he sighed and decided to just let Ennek finish. Perhaps Ennek would relax a little once the inspection was complete and he saw that nothing fatal was wrong with Miner. And then he might tell what in all the hells had happened.
    Ennek finished with the front of Miner’s body, his lips lifting into a snarl when he saw the condition of the bottom of Miner’s feet. But when he stood and walked around his back, Ennek actually roared with anger.
    “What did they do?!” he shouted.
    Oh. The brand. “It barely even hurts anymore. The water helped, I expect.”
    Ennek wasn’t placated by Miner’s words. “I’ll destroy them!” he thundered. “I’ll destroy the whole bloody lot of them!”
    There was something terrible about Ennek’s eyes now. They weren’t cold and cruel like those of the Wizard who put him in Stasis, nor were they hard and calculating like Thelius’s, but they were every bit as terrifying as they almost burned with fury. The air began to crackle with an unsettling energy. Ennek took a lurching step backward, away from Miner, and looked across Miner’s head at