Volume 2 Chapter 5

  There were three reasons why nobody swam in this particular spring.

  First of all, it wasn’t really a spring, but a place where an underground river came to the surface. Some said that it was a dragonvein, but the adults said that was nonsense. But it was undeniable that things appeared on hits banks now and then that could have only gotten there by being washed up from somewhere else.

  Second, the water was too cold.

  Third, the water was way too cold.

  Well, actually the third reason was because it was easy to get swept under by the current. Things appeared in this spring, but things also disappeared if you threw them into it.

  It was the spring that giveth and taketh away, and sometimes the adults came to pay their respects to the spirit of the spring, which was said to be very powerful.

  He’d been there when he was younger with his father, who had made him swear that he’d never try to swim in it. It was simply too dangerous.

  Now, the voice in his head that was claiming to be his sacred ancestor was telling him to break his solemn word to his father from that day.

  And he was going to do it.

  He stripped down and lowered himself into the water, nervously.

  He called out the words his grandfather had given him. “Oh spirit of this spring, ye who giveth and taketh away, I call to thee. I bind thee unto myself. I—“

  Abruptly he slipped, gasping as he hit the water fully and it was cold , and he was swept under. The current really was swift, and he was soon in darkness and banging against rocks and the walls of the underground cavern.

  “You old fool, what are you doing sending me your grandchild to eat?” a female voice said.

  “Save him,” Hao said.

  “You save him. Oh wait, you can’t, that’s right, you’re dead!” the woman laughed. It was an old woman, a crone’s voice, with a bitterness to it.

  Yin struggled against the current, but he didn’t know which way was up, or which way was back towards the light. He was swimming in the wrong direction when he hit his head on another rock and saw stars.

  “I beg of ye Umbrine, save him,” Hao said, his voice growing more desperate. “It wasn’t meant to be like this. You grabbed his foot from him and tripped him before he could complete the ritual. If you—”

  “You’re damn right I did!” the crone said in a scolding voice. “Imagine. He might be a descendant of yours, but to bind one such as I? Tomfoolery, and it will serve him to be taken down a peg.”

  I can’t breathe! Was all that Yin could think as he struggled blindly.

  “You owe me this,” Hao said, his voice utterly calm. “Save him, and I will ask nothing more. I know it is within your power.”

  A moment of silence except for Yin’s desperate struggles. Then a spiritual “harumph,” And a sudden change in the current. Yin’s head broke the surface and he gasped a lungful of air.

  “I plead to the powers of this world to bind my weak body to the spirits of nature, that I might rise above base flesh and become something more!” Yin yelled triumphantly. “Let the spirit of this spring become my guide and guardian as I set foot on the road to immortality! Let the --”

  The current changed again and he was swept under.

  He heard one last harumph as everything went black.

  ~~~~~

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  He awoke.

  He was not expecting that.

  He was naked in the darkness, alone and underground. And he was so cold that he was shivering. He heard Hao shouting in his ear.

  An eddy in the current had pressed him up against the cavern wall, but there was an air pocket here and he had managed to cough up a lungful of water and wake up.

  “Please?” he whispered to the spirit of the spring. “I’m sorry. I should have asked more politely. Please, won’t you be my spirit? Also thank you for saving me.”

  “You’re not saved yet, boy,” Umbrine said harshly. “Oh very well. Open your soul to me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Abruptly he felt ice enter his veins, like sharp needles piercing him to the bone. He screamed in agony, but even as the cold penetrated him, it also filled him with warmth.

  It was a false warmth, but he was grateful for whatever mercy the spirits would bestow upon him.

  “Ugh, I’ve grown fat in my old age. So much of me to fit into such a small vessel,” the crone muttered and he gasped as he felt the coldness settle into his belly, just behind his navel.

  “You’re still beautiful,” Yin said reflexively.

  “Hah! You’ve never even seen my true form boy.”

  “Doesn’t matter. If you save my life I’ll say you’re beautiful every day until the day I die.”

  “Don’t make promises to a spirit that you don’t intend to keep. I’ll release you from that one, but only when you reach ten thousand days,” she scolded. “Listen here boy. If you want to live, then you need to dive under water here, and swim as hard as you can with the current. You might black out again, but if you do as I say, I’ll do everything I can to save you. Understand?”

  “Yes, my beautiful Umbrine,” Yin said. He took two deep breaths, then did as he was instructed.

  He swam as hard as he could with the current, long after his lungs started burning. He swam even as he lost his breath and began inhaling the water. He swam even as he lost consciousness.

  Once more, he was overcome by darkness.

  ~~~~~~

  He saw light.

  He wasn’t expecting that.

  For a second he thought that it was the light of the afterlife, but then he realize that he was floating in the icy cold water and that his body was so numb that it wasn’t even tingling anymore. He sat up, shaking, and he began to move instinctively.

  He was surrounded by driftwood and flotsam. He had to climb over it and through it to reach the light. When he finally emerged from the narrow opening in the cavern, he cried out for help, but nobody heard him.

  He was so cold. He realized that he might have survived drowning just to die of cold. In the middle of summer, he might die of cold, he thought to himself. All because he was an idiot.

  “Hao, Umbrine, help me,” he called out.

  “You’re not dying,” Hao said calmly. “You’re being reborn.”

  “I’m so cold.”

  “Yes. That’s what happens when you absorb an ice spirit,” Hao explained. “Isn’t that so, Umbrine?”

  “Harumph!” she said. But Yin could sense there wasn’t any malevolence in it. She sighed. “The old fool is right. You’ll have to get a bit colder than this before it becomes dangerous. But it would probably do you some good to lie in the sun over there and get some warmth in those limbs anyway.”

  Yin looked and saw the place where she had suggested, and he crawled over to lie in the sunlight. It was so warm, so wonderful, that he promptly fell asleep.

  He awoke, still shivering, after dark. But there was a light nearby, a torch. A man was hiking through the forest, pausing periodically to call out a name.

  Yin’s name.

  “I’m over here!” Yin shouted, remembering too late that he didn’t have clothes on. Fortunately it was dark, and he was able to cloak his modesty in shadows for the most part. The first thing the man—one of the farmers from the village—did when he approached was toss him a shirt that would hang down to his knees, for which Yin was profoundly grateful. For the warmth it provided as much as anything else.

  “How did you know that I’d need it?” Yin asked.

  “Was expecting to cover your corpse with it, lad. We found your clothes by the Umbrine spring and figured that was the end of you. I was going to fetch your body, so your father wouldn’t have to,” the farmer said. “It’s a miracle that you’re alive.”

  “Yeah,” Yin said. “A miracle.”

  ?