in ropes of weed. The giant stumbles and the undertow of the waves pulls at him, dragging him towards the edge of the deep trench that opens and swallows him.
The giant Aino-Suvantamoinen feels the viciousness of the sea’s antagonism. Ropes of water form within the water and wrap themselves around his arms and legs, tugging him down towards the pit that is opening beneath him. Bands of iron water squeeze his ribcage, forcing the breath from his lungs. Ice-cold water-fingers grip his face, hooking claws into his nostrils, stabbing into his ears with water-needles, gouging his eyes, tearing at the lids. This isn’t how it is meant to be. The man he is trying to bring home is fighting him. He’s too strong. All the futures in which he will rescue this man and return home safe are fading and dying one by one. Something is putting them out like lamps.
I will drown here, and with me the marsh will fail.
With one last push of effort he begins to swim for the surface.
Pulling the water-fingers from his face he peers up and sees the dim light above him, the greenish star in the shape of a man, glowing dimly. It is not far. The giant kicks and hauls himself towards it. The seawater clamps itself about him, heavy and chill as liquid iron, squeezing like a fist. He fights it, dragging himself upwards out of the ocean pit. But it is too far. He is tiring. He cannot reach it. The thread of river-water that links him to his body in the isba is failing, and when it breaks he will be lost.
Desperately he lets go of a part of himself and sends it back up the river-thread, squirming and writhing for home like a salmon against the stream. The silver thought-salmon flickers its tail and disappears into the dimming green.
Maroussia was kneeling over the still body of the giant, her ear against his mouth. He was trying to say something.
‘Wake him… wake the man… call him back… do it… now’
The hoarse whisper faded. The giant’s face collapsed.
Maroussia lurched across to where Lom was lying and took his face in her hands, turning it towards her.
‘Vissarion!’ She was shouting to be heard. The voices outside in the night were screeching and yammering, hurling themselves against the walls of the isba. ‘Vissarion! It’s Maroussia! Listen to me! You have to wake up now! Oh, you have to. Please.’
Vissarion Yppolitovich Lom hears a voice calling, faint above the noise of the sea and very far away. He opens his eyes and sees against the shadows of the sky a face he knows, a familiar face, a face with a name he half-remembers, pale and calm and serious, looking down on him, like the moon made whole. He lifts his arm towards it, and as he does so he feels a tremendous blow against his back, lifting him up out of the water, and a huge fist seizes him by the neck and begins to pull him back towards the shore.
70
Lom woke in the giant Aino-Suvantamoinen’s isba, aware of the warmth and the fire and the quiet shadows and the giant sitting near him, waiting, patient, large and solid. Lom knew where he was. Completely. He felt the moving water nearby, and grass, and trees, and the sifting satiny mud. The sea, some distance off, was still the sea, and the river that surged towards it was a great speaking mouth. The air around him was a tangible flowing thing, freighted with a thousand scents and drifting pheromone clouds, just as the space between the stars was filled with light and forces passing though. Everything was spilling myth, everything was soaked in truth-dream.
‘You are awake,’ said Aino-Suvantamoinen gently. His voice was slow and strong and estuarial.
‘This will fade,’ said Lom. ‘Won’t it? This will not last. Will it? Will it?’
He tried to raised his head from the leather pillow.
‘No,’ said the giant, ‘this feeling that you have now will not last. But it will not altogether fade. There is no going back to the way you were before.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘You need to rest.’
‘I hurt you, didn’t I? I didn’t want to come back, and I hurt you.’
‘Yes.’
‘I almost killed you.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault. You were stronger than I thought. You did not know.’
‘No.’
‘I bear you no grudge. ‘
‘But you are hurt.’
‘Only tired now. I will recover. But I need to sleep. it will be winter soon.’