Immortality after drowning

The merfolk leader said something else, more emphatically. The Rag Man nodded again. The merfolk leader motioned with her arm, and two more of her people splashed ashore, carrying a bundle between them. The bundle was wrapped in a net made of cord woven from kelp.

The commanding merfolk gargled something else, and the two bearers unwrapped the net to reveal a young man, his face pale and his skin slightly bluish. The young man did not move. He had a gag made of seaweed fronds clamped across his mouth.

The merfolk leader looked at the Rag Man. The Rag Man merely nodded.

The merfolk leader gargled something else. One of the other merfolk pulled at the frond over the young man’s mouth. It came away easily. The young man still did not move, and his chest was still.

The merfolk leader struck the prostrate body in the ribs.

The young man coughed once, and water spilled out of his throat, then he inhaled, in a deep, ragged breath- coughed again—and continued to breath. His chest rose and fell normally now.

The Rag Man nodded and reached for his satchel.

The black—wrapped creature picked up the canvas bag and pulled from it a helmet. The helm was made entirely of orange coral and looked as if it had been grown into that shape instead of fashioned by human hands. He presented it to the merfolk leader.

The merfolk leader bated her fangs and said something else in her garbled, throaty language.

The Rag Man merely nodded.

The three merfolk raiders half crawled, half slithered back to where the combers were breaking. Already the other merfolk were fleeing the shore. The two bearers followed, diving in without looking back. The leader looked back one last time, then dived in as well, following her brethren away from the beach.

The Rag Man waited until all the merfolk had departed, the sky darkening behind him. Then the ragged creature picked up the young man and pulled him free of his kelp woven net. He grasped the young man by the neck of his shirt and dragged him up above the high tide mark, where even the storm—swollen waves would not l touch him, to a small divot between two dunes. Driftwood had already been stacked in a shallow pit, and dried salt grasses had been added as tinder. The Rag Man laid the young man’s body out and touched the side of his cheek with the back of a skeletal hand. The young man’s flesh was already warm, when moments before it had been as cold as ice.

***

The Gathering Dark, Chapter 7