Page 38 of The Cinders
‘The slipper…the slipper is in the water.’Lim was submerged to the elbows, holding the lilies by their stalks to keep them at bay.‘I can see it.’
‘What slipper?’Daiyu asked.‘Why did you put one of your slippers in the fish pond?’
‘I didn’t.’Lim pulled his arms out of the water and scooted his backside onto the stone ledge.He kicked off his own sandals, and swung his legs over, dipping them into the water, submerging them to the tops of his calves.
‘What are you doing?’Daiyu cried.
‘Going for a swim.’
Lim wriggled about as he lifted his changsan above his knees and pulled the material tight around his thighs.With a thrust of his hips, he propelled himself into the water.
His breath caught as he descended into the freezing water.The depth was far greater than he’d assumed; an assumption based on the nearness of the slipper’s glow.He’d thought his feet would touch the bottom long before his head went beneath the surface, but he found himself with nostrils full and the braid of his queue pulled upwards like some wild rope hanging from the surface.
Lim sank down, and darkness crept in.A tinge of fear whispered at him as he imagined himself falling into a bottomless, watery grave.The ugly whisper vanished the moment the shimmer of Xian’s slipper brightened the water.Lim angled himself downwards, reaching for the shoe where it lay in a tangle of snaking weeds.He snatched up the slipper, his lungs hassling him for air, and twisted himself upwards once more, kicking out.He’d let go of his robe, and the pull of the fabric was like a coat made of stone.Weeds played at his ankles.Fright pushed a stream of bubbles from Lim’s mouth.He drew up his knee, moving in the slow motion style enforced by the water, and pushed his foot against the weeds snagging his other ankle.
For a moment he feared he’d only gotten himself more entwined.He looked down, his lungs all but emptied, his head aching with the loss of his breath.The glow from the slippers illuminated the weeds.Guiding him as he untangled himself, then lighting the way as he strained towards the surface; using a swimmer’s stroke he’d learned from a fisherman in Shanghai.
The last morsel of air left his lungs, and his ears rang.
Go to him.
He burst free, sweet flag lacing his ear, something slimy clinging to his cheek.His hungry lungs had him inhaling wildly.
‘You are mad!’Daiyu exclaimed.‘What do you think you…oh, that is your shoe?Who would throw such a beautiful thing into a pond?’
‘No one…’ Lim panted.‘He wouldn’t…’
The gleam from the shoe had lessened back to its usual, but still extraordinary, sparkling moonlight.
‘Who wouldn’t?Who does the shoe belong to?’
‘Xian’ He spat; grit and dank water.‘I gave them to him.’
‘But…he’d never throw such a beautiful piece into the water.’Daiyu sounded both confused and forlorn.‘Or was he so bereft he senses left him?Oh, Master Song, I wish we’d never given him that tincture.He is not in the right mind to know when to stop.’
Lim leaned his hands on his thighs, waiting for the manic pulse of his heart to slow, and the water to seep from his ears.His tilt drew him nearer to the slipper still clutched in his hand, and his gaze caught upon a peculiarity; a tinge of fiery gold upon the rounded toe.He tilted the shoe, thinking the light played tricks, but it was an overcast day, no sun to shine its brilliant rays and cast such a colour.
Lim ran the pad of his thumb over the splotch of colour, and his lungs forgot how to breathe, all over again.
There, trimming the crystal contour of the toe, were fish scales; seven thin slivers of gold; a unique and delicate armour.
‘Go to him.’He repeated the words he’d thought a delusion of an air-starved mind.
‘Master Lim?Are you alright?Your lips are blue and you are very pale.’
He ran his finger once more over the scales.They could have fallen from Mercy, and adhered themselves to the unusual fabric.Strange, but possible.
A man who did not believe in superstitions certainly could not believe in magickal carp.
‘I need to go.’
Of course, he needed to go.What an idiot he was, to be near-drowned to realise it.Lim cursed himself.He’d been pandering to the Lady Tian, whilst a grieving man suffered in the company of braggarts and pretentious fools.
He must go to Manhao.
The decision settled on him like a beloved coat, fitting precisely where it ought, making him wonder why he’d taken so damned long to wear it.
Lim strode away, water streaming from his drenched changsan which clung to his body, his braid heavy where it hung over his shoulder.He was stopped by a harried Daiyu.