Gods and Warriors (12 page)

Again the Sea tossed the boat clear out of the water and smacked it down, but this time the sky was gone. Hylas was in darkness—he was
inside
a wave as big as a mountain. With relentless force it sucked the boat upward to its crest; it held him there, he was staring into an abyss; then it flung down the boat and he was plummeting faster and faster, racing toward a wall of black water…

The boat smashed into it and shattered like an eggshell.

N
o wind. No waves. Hylas floated under the stars on the quiet, black, breathing Sea.

He was cold. He’d been in the water so long that his skin was wrinkled and peeling. He couldn’t quite believe that he was still alive.

The knife had saved him. In the storm its tether had gotten wrapped around a plank from the shattered boat, and as the other end was tied to his wrist, this had kept him afloat. The plank was just long enough to lie on, and at times he did, paddling with hands and feet and dagger; but he hated being unable to see behind him, so then he would sit astride the plank—only now his dangling legs felt horribly vulnerable, so he would lie on his belly again.

Either way, he’d been paddling forever, although the land at the edge of the Sea never seemed to get any closer.

The bronze knife gleamed in the light of the waning Moon. It kept him company, but it couldn’t keep him safe. He hadn’t seen the shark since before the storm, but he knew it was out there.

He was exhausted, but he didn’t dare stop paddling, because then he would fall asleep and the shark would get him…

Something brushed his foot. He jerked awake. The water around him was alive with fish: slivers of starlight flashing to the surface to feed, the bigger ones chasing the smaller.

He started to paddle, and the fish stayed with him. Then they were gone as swiftly as they’d come.

He stopped paddling. What was the point? He would never reach land. Like those fish, he was here to be eaten.

The dying Keftian had told him that the Sea would give him answers, but now he knew that wasn’t true. The Sea was playing with him, as a lynx plays with a mouse.

A breeze sprang up, murmuring in his ear. Suddenly he remembered the promise he’d made to the Keftian. He’d promised to give his hair to the Sea, to set his spirit free.

Amazingly, the hair was still there, a sodden tangle tied to his belt. Wearily, he unpicked it and flung it across the waves. “Take his spirit,” he mumbled. “Let him be at peace.”

Silence.

Part of him had hoped that the Sea would give some sign to show that it had heard him; perhaps the Fin People—whatever they were—would come for the dead man’s spirit, as the Keftian had said. But the lock of hair rocked forlornly on the water, and the night wind died with a defeated sigh.

Hylas lay down on his belly and shut his eyes. He couldn’t go on. It was too hard. He was going to die out here, alone in the dark.

Let it be painless,
he begged.
Let me slip away into the arms of the Sea and never wake up.

In his head, he began to say good-bye.
Good-bye, Telamon. Sorry I couldn’t meet you like we’d planned, I’d have had a lot to tell you. Good-bye, goats. To the ones the Crows killed, sorry I couldn’t save you. To the ones that got away, you stay in the wild, don’t let Neleos catch you.

“Sorry, Scram,” he mumbled out loud. His throat closed. His eyes stung. “Sorry I couldn’t avenge you…” He drew a deep breath. “Issi… Issi, I’m—”

His sister’s name was like a slap of cold water in his face. It wasn’t only
his
life he was giving up. It was hers. He was her big brother. He was supposed to look after her.

His one memory of their mother was of her telling him to do just that. He’d been lying under the stars wrapped in the bearskin, with Issi snuggled against him. It had been too dark to see their mother’s face, but he’d felt her warm hand on his cheek and her long hair tickling his nose as she leaned down and whispered, “Look after your sister…”

If he gave up now, he doomed Issi and dishonored their mother’s memory. Something inside him—a hard, fierce kernel of strength—couldn’t let that happen.

Wearily, he hauled himself upright. He struck the plank with his fist. He started to paddle.

The stars brightened. The bronze knife gleamed, urging him on.

Then he saw it. A fin, keeping level with him a short distance away. Just when he’d decided to live, he was going to die.

He drew in his legs. He heard the soft splash of wavelets against the plank. He watched the fin move ahead of him—then cut a wide, lazy ring around the plank.

The shark’s head rose above the surface, then sank back. Its fin turned. It was moving toward him.

Nothing existed but the shark. Again it raised its head, and now Hylas saw its gaping jaws and its jagged in-curving teeth. Its black eye locked on his. He lashed out with the knife. The shark swerved. His fist grazed granite as it swam away.

Hylas watched the fin scythe the water in another lazy ring. It disappeared. He huddled on the plank, peering about him.

The shark erupted behind him. He jabbed at it—missed—and nearly fell off the plank. Again it swam away. Again it circled.

He knew now what it was doing; in the mountains he’d seen wolves do the same thing. It was testing the strength of its prey. It would come at him again and again till he was too exhausted to fight, and then it would make the kill. He didn’t think it would have to wait long.

Something slithered against his thigh. He cried out.

It was only the Keftian’s hair, drifting on the waves.
With the tip of the knife he flicked it from him, and it lay like a snake on the black water.

Wildly, he cast about—but he could see no sign of the shark. The Moon’s path was a trail of beaten silver across the Sea.

A black fin cut across it. It turned and started toward him. With a moan, he drew in his legs.

In the distance, he caught a strange blue glimmer.

Steadily, the shark came on.

The glimmer was getting bigger. Brighter. It was racing toward him. His eyes darted from it to the shark and back again.

Around him the Sea began to glow strangely, as if it had turned to cold blue fire. The unknown thing was arrowing toward him down the Moon’s path, and as it drew nearer, he saw the gleaming curve of a great back—and then another and another, all swimming toward him, arching and diving in unison.

One of the creatures leaped clear of the water, and it was a giant fish made of pure blue light. Twisting around to look at him, it dived into the Sea with a luminous splash.

The shark was going to reach him first. Gripping the plank with his free hand, he brandished the knife. He stabbed at it. The blade glanced off its flank. The shark sank—then surfaced and turned to attack again.

At that moment the Sea exploded. An enormous fish burst from the waves in a rain of blue fire—but it wasn’t a fish, it was a
dolphin
; Hylas saw its great shining body and
mysterious smile as it plunged into the burning Sea, then leaped again, arching right over his head, so close that he saw its pale smooth belly and a raking of fine white scars on its nose.

For an instant the dolphin’s eye met his and its spirit called to him—then it disappeared into the bright water. It surfaced at once, and with startling deftness snagged the lock of the Keftian’s hair on its flipper. With a flick, it tossed it to another dolphin following behind. The second one caught the hair in its jaws and dived with it into the deep, while the first—the big one with the scars—powered into the shark and butted it with punishing force. The shark twisted around to bite, but the dolphin was agile. The shark snapped empty air.

Now more dolphins were joining the attack, surrounding the shark and butting it from all sides. Hylas gave a shout of triumph. The shark broke through and fled, and the dolphins raced after it, their radiant trails flickering and fading into the night.

But many more had stayed with him, and the Sea was churning with dolphins: leaping, slamming the burning blue waves with their tails; and now he heard them calling to each other in high, otherworldly squeals. He heard the soft
pfft
of their breath and saw the holes on top of their heads blink open and spurt glittering spray; he caught the gleam of their wise dark eyes.

He forgot his terror and despair. In awe he watched them arrow beneath him, trailing streams of luminous
bubbles, then burst out to drench him in cold blue fire.

And they will come to fetch my spirit,
the Keftian had told him.
You will see them leaping over the waves—so strong, so beautiful.…

The shark was gone.

The Fin People had come.

A
s night wore on, the fire faded from the Sea and the dolphins turned from shimmering blue to sleek silver; but still they wove a shining ring around Hylas. Their eyes threw back the moonlight like the eyes of wolves, and they swam so close he could have touched them if he’d dared.

They were creatures from another world. Often they moved in unison, twisting and turning as one; and though they were mostly silent, at times they pierced the night with alien shrieks. They seemed to breathe through a hole in the top of their heads, arching out of the water just long enough to exhale with a soft
pfft,
then diving under again. And although they passed within reach, they ignored him, intent on some mysterious purpose of their own.

They had saved him from the shark. But why? They belonged to the Lady of the Wild Things—and She, like all immortals, could create as well as destroy. What did She want with him?

Suddenly the ring widened and they began to play. The scar-nosed one was back—did that mean the shark was
dead? Hylas saw that it often swam with a smaller, dark-gray dolphin with battered flanks and a notch bitten out of one tailfluke. She looked older; Hylas guessed she was the mother. A baby dolphin swam very close to her. Its nose was stubbier than those of the grown-ups, and it hadn’t learned to breathe properly; it spluttered through its blowhole. When its mother broke the surface it had to jump right out to keep up, beating the air with its tail.

The scar-nosed dolphin—its big brother?—raced past and scooped a scrap of seaweed onto his snout, then tossed it to the mother. She caught it on her flipper and flicked it back to him, right over her baby’s head. They kept this up for a bit, then the scar-nosed one let the baby catch it. Now Hylas was certain: definitely the big brother. When Issi was little, he’d sometimes let her win—until she’d guessed, and gotten annoyed.