Blood is Water

It was weird the way she looked at him. Do all the water spirits look at humans like that? He didn’t know. It was the first time he had seen a water spirit. She looked shy, lowering her eyes, flipping her small blond eyelashes. She was the size of his hand but he could see everything in her as if it was magnified. She mimed something with her mouth, as if to say something. But he couldn’t hear her voice. He motioned that really he could not hear her. She flew close to her. He felt bizarre. Her slender body stirred something inside him, something down there. How could he feel that with this impossible creature? Water spirits were like the tears of gods. She flew close to his ear. She said something, but he wasn’t sure of what he heard. She whispered in his ear but it was as if in her words he got lost. He felt his mind go empty and that feeling of arousal grew stronger, he could feel it in his trousers. He heard her laugh and it was as if she was laughing inside him, the echo reverberating throughout his body. And then a sentence stuck in a loop in his head and he started to repeat it with his lips, without making a sound, like the water spirit. She smiled, but he couldn’t see her. With her wing she cut his throat. Water exploded out and invested her. She felt inebriated, made a sound that humans thought they were the only once to make in the moment of pleasure. The blood danced around her while his body fell. While all the blood and his life drained away from his eyes his lips kept repeated those words, again and again, until there was no life left to say the words: blood is water… blood is water… blood is water…

The fisher who found the body said that he was the baker. The baker liked to fish very early in the mornings. The fisher had seen him a few times. The knight didn’t need to inspect the body. He knew he would find no trace of blood anymore. It was the seventh murder around the Yellow Lake. It was called like that because the surface was yellow and it had been for centuries. It was filthy. Like a mirror full of golden dust never polished. The fisher said there were weird fish there, but it was fish that he could sell and that he could eat. No one had ever died of it. It was bitter. And you had to clean it well. But again, it was food to put on the table. The fisher said it was the water spirits. They were angry for the state of the lake. The god of the lake had died, poisoned. And his water spirits were his sorrow and his pain. They wanted revenge. The knight thanked the fisher and dragged himself and his heavy sword. I left a long scar of dead grass.

He had heard of course of the stories about the god of the lake. It was the local legend. He had heard the story at least twenty times in the week he had been in the village. The king had sent him because he knew the local dialect. He knew many dialects and many languages. It was his gift. And the sword, but he didn’t like the sword much. The king had sent him because people were dying. Even though it was a very far away village in a faraway region, they were still his subjects, the king said, and the errant knight loves travelling. He had travelled in the area before a couple of times and as usual it hadn’t taken him much to become fluent to the dialect. So here he was dragging his sword through the mud and the grass. The head of the village was waiting for him on the top of a hill. He could not capacitate himself of how she could be the head of the village. This was really a faraway land.

“Nothing,” she said. It was a girl of twelve or fourteen, he wasn’t sure. She had become head of the village because she had awakened a couple of years back. At the moment of the awakening the previous head of the village had simply walked into the lake and disappeared in the yellow dust. So she was the awakened, the wise one, and everyone went to her for advice and she ran things around there. And she had been on his neck since he had got there. Wherever he turned she was there. He wasn’t even surprised anymore. Either she has spies in the village (which he would accept as absolutely normal), or she was really wise and just knew where he was.

“Nothing, no blood, no clues. But it is definitely not human. There isn’t a drop of blood in the grass or his clothes, nothing. I guess it’s true it’s the water spirits.”

“No, it is one spirit.”

“How do you know,” he asked her, annoyed at her. It wasn’t easy to have a conversation with someone who thinks she knows everything and speaks in statements, no conjectures.

“All the people died the same,” she said as if it was obvious.

“Well, yes, they all had their blood drained.”

“Obvious. No. they are the same. The cut is the same. Perfect as a pure blade. My dead people are all dead men. No women. Not too young, not too old. You know languages. I know who you are. You know the language of things.”

She had a strange way of putting it, but it was true. Objects and bodies talk, even dead bodies and he could understand what they said. All she was saying was true, he was quite impressed. He simply refused to discuss the case with her. He’d rather she took care of the village. Ask the villagers to avoid the lake since all the dead had been found around it. But she refuses, life does not stop with death, she said. So here was another dead, but the living keep living. Guess she was right there too.

“Let’s say it’s one spirit and not two, what difference does it make?”

“You cannot stop the many, but you can stop the one,” said the child and walked away, headed towards her village. The errant knight was left feeling like an idiot.

Like every night in the last week he hid himself somewhere around the lake. If he only could leave his sword behind he would have, but that dead weight was his and only his. He really should learn to curse, he is so good with languages. So here he is ready for another sleepless night. He was not hidden far last time, he was surprised he missed the murder. The killer must be skilled and quiet. So very skilled to be so quiet. But the killer’s pattern was very clear to him. This killer worked in a very defined territory.

A man passed him without seeing him. He was a young and well-built man. Perfect, thought the errant knight, the right typology of victim. The man walked to the lake. Pulled down his trousers and let go of a stream right into the lake. He must have kept it for so long, because the knight could smell it. While lost in thought some part of him noticed that the man and turned around away from the lake but was just stood there with his trousers now. And then he saw her, the water spirit. Even from the distance he could see how beautiful she was. She seemed to be talking to the man, but he kept shaking his head. She flew closer. She had blonde hair and silver wings. She flew closer to the man and start saying something next to his ear. The knight saw the man have an erection. He was curious to know what the language of the water spirits was to have such an effect. He knew the water spirit would hear his sword, but he could not just stay there, so he moved.

The water spirit looked at him. If she was surprised she didn’t show it. She giggled instead, as if the knight had simply caught a couple having a bit of fun. She came closer to him, the man with the trousers down stood there. The knight could see the man was whispering something. The knight could see the spirit’s lips move now. It didn’t take him long to understand: blood is water… blood is water… it took him only a little longer to connect everything. It was the spirit who had taken all the blood because blood is water and the water spirits could control water. It took him even a little longer to realise that he was being hypnotised. The spirit was by his ear now, whispering those words: blood is water… blood is water… They were such simple words but they seemed to be hiding so much more. He felt an erection in his trousers. He had no connection to his mind, but his body was overcharged, as if all the blood in him wanted to explode. He saw the spirit smiling at him again, but her eyes were not happy. She was angry. Not that he had not anything yet. Her wing shined like a sharp blade. It was in that moment that his own sword dragged him on the floor. In the mud and in the grass he woke up. His sword really hated magic. When he was able to stand up with the old handle of his stone sword between his hand, the point down between his feet he could see the water spirit finally surprised.

“I’m sorry, my sword really hates magic,” was all the knight could say. In a flash the sword almost escaped his hands (that would have been terrible as the sword is a dead thing without someone holding it), and cut the water spirit in half.

The head of the village stood at the entrance of the village. No one else came to say goodbye to the errant knight, who had killed the water spirit. It was okay, thought the knight, after all I was only doing my duty. The head of the village was probably making sure he left.

“You have a good sword,” she said.

“I know. It’s not really mine, it’s just been given to me but it doesn’t want to leave me alone.”

“The water spirit was right to hate us even though it’s not our fault but in the blood we have carried for generations.”

“Mmh,” was all that the knight could say.

“A good sword indeed.”

“Yeah, she did all the work in the end, didn’t she,” said the errant knight touching his sword only slightly.

“Yes, the sword almost needs no knight.”

“Mmh,” was all the knight could say. He knew the insult was coming and it had come. It was time for him to go. He turned around and dragged his sword away.