Mad Ship (87 page)

As the pole clattered to the stone, Wintrow jumped aside to avoid it. Then he went to the mouth of the fissure and peered out. There was no one in sight. But another threat was immediately visible. The tide had turned and was creeping back in over the stones. There were storm clouds on the horizon. The wind seemed to be blowing the tide in with its force. Bladderwort that had lain flat on the rock now swayed with the incoming water. The rising tide could trap him here. Even if it did not, there were other matters to consider: the Treasure Beach, the Oracle and the boat that was expecting them to return by high tide.

Kennit was probably furious with him.

He stood, cradling his sore arm, and watched the tide spilling up over the slope of the beach. It was coming fast. He had no control at all over that one factor. If he stayed, he was going to be trapped here. As it was, he was going to get wet wading around the headland.

He’d have to leave. He’d done all he could.

He heard a sound from within the fissure, a metal bar rolling on stone. Frowning, he stepped back within, and then gasped at what he saw.

It had heaved itself out of the pool and flung itself at the walls of its prison. Its head, turned sideways, was wedged in the opening he had created. Its dwarfed and twisted body was still powerful as it lashed and thrust against the confines of the pool. “No, go back!” he cried futilely. “It’s too small! There’s no water yet!”

It could not understand him. The animal lunged again against the bars, but only succeeded in wedging itself more tightly. It screamed its frustration, the starburst around its neck standing out as it raged. It tried to jerk its head back through the bars, but could not. It was stuck.

With a sinking heart, he realized he was stuck as well. Wintrow could not leave it like that. Its gills worked as frantically as its gasping jaws. He did not know how long it could survive with its head out of the water. There was already an air of desperation to the lashing tail. If he could just loosen one more bar, perhaps it could slip back into the pool. It wouldn’t be free, but it wouldn’t be dead.

If he hurried, he might live, too.

He approached it gingerly to see which bar would be best to work on. Its wedged struggles had actually loosened one of the blocks. It had also coated it with slime. That wasn’t going to make lifting it any easier. He took up one of the bars he had worked loose. It was horribly long, but at least he wouldn’t have to touch it. Any trapped animal might bite, and if one that size bit, not much would be left of him.

He shoved the freed bar between two of the remaining bars and used it as a lever. Unfortunately, this meant pushing the bar even tighter against the creature. It roared, but surprisingly it did not strike at him. The block of stone that secured the bar at the base grated against its fellows as it shifted. Wintrow immediately repositioned his lever in the widened crack between the blocks. The pole was too damn long. It jammed against the walls of the fissure. But finally it worked, shoving the stone over a bit. Now for the bar.

“Don’t hurt me!” he cautioned the creature as he approached it, and for a wonder it seemed to understand his intention if not his words. It stilled, gills working heavily. Or perhaps it was simply collapsing as it died. He couldn’t think about that, nor about the passing time. He seized the bar in his hands and lifted it up.

He screamed.

His hands burned and froze to the slime-coated metal. But the agony on his skin was as nothing compared to the agony of knowing. He knew her pain, and he grasped suddenly the torment of a sentient creature imprisoned for time past his ability to imagine. With her, he breathed the scalding air. His tender skin cracked and stung in the dryness, while he knew with terror that soon it would be too late. She must escape now, or it would soon be too late for all of them.

He convulsed away from the bar. The strength of his body’s rejection of the pain flung him to the floor of the prison. He lay there panting. Nothing in his life had ever prepared him for that blast of sharing. Even the bond he had with the liveship was a clumsy and insensitive bridge compared to that joining. For a brief moment, he had been unable to distinguish between himself and the creature.

No. Not creature, not unless he too was to be considered a creature. She was no less than he was; as he considered all he had experienced, he wondered if she was more.

An instant later, he was on his feet. He tore his shirt off, wrapped it about his hands and approached the bar again. This time he had to recognize the intelligence that was fading in the great gold eyes. He seized the bar in his muffled grip and lifted. It was difficult, for whatever coated the bar made it slippery. He heaved up on it twice before he lifted it from its deep bed in the stone. The moment it had cleared the lip of the block, the sea serpent surged against it. Her greater bulk pushed it aside as if it were a straw. Wintrow went with it, not only flung forcefully aside by her passage but also brushed with the slick coating of her scaled hide. It seared him where it touched his flesh. He cried out as he saw even his heavy canvas trousers fraying away like crumbling ashes. He knew her determined intent. It appalled him.

“No water below!” He conveyed the information with voice and thought as forcefully as he was able. “Rocks. Only rocks. You’ll die.”

Death is preferable.

She undulated past him, length after coiled length of her spilling out of the imprisoning pool like thread unwinding from a spool. As she passed, he was aware of the tremendous effort it took for her to move her cramped and distorted body. This was an act of desperation. She was not sure if she fled to freedom or death. But she knew she left captivity behind.

Yes. Sorry to have killed you.

“It’s all right,” he muttered. He was not even sure if he was dead. He was outside himself. No. Bigger than himself. It was like the trances at the monastery, when he worked his stained glass, but bigger, much bigger. The pain of his scalded flesh was no more significant than an annoying splinter in the heel.
Ah,
he sighed.
Now I see you clearly. You were there all along. The serpents and the dragons in my windows, in all my art. How did you know I’d come to you?

How did you know to come to me?
She wondered in reply.

But she did not wait for an answer. She spilled out of the fissure. He braced, unwilling to hear the impact of her heavy body on the rocks below. But her very size saved her that. Her length reached from the floor of the cave to the beach below. She lowered her fore-section until it met the beach, and then drew the rest of her body down after herself in undulations like an inchworm. Strange. He was no longer touching her but was still aware of her. The hot sun shone down on her. Sand clung to her. She rolled helplessly on the barnacle-coated rocks. The last of her strength was spent. She needed the water to take up her weight; she needed to moisten her gills. The incoming tide just kissed against her belly. It wasn’t enough. She had striven so hard, just to die on the beach. So hard a battle, only to become food for crabs and seagulls.

Something was happening to Wintrow. His entire body was reacting now. His eyes were puffing shut, while his breath whistled in and out of his thickened throat. His eyes and nose streamed, his skin felt stripped. Yet he was standing, and staggering to the edge of the fissure. His useless tattered shirt still wrapped one of his hands. He could see the green-gold body of the serpent on the beach below him. He could feel her baking in the heat. He would go down to her.

The narrow path defied him. On his third edging step, he simply fell backwards off the cliff-face. He landed on the serpent’s yielding body. She broke his fall, but it was all the comfort of falling into a sizzling frying pan. He shrieked in pain. Too much, she was too much to know, and whatever coated her skin was eating his away. He rolled away from her, to land on barnacle-crusted rocks. A wave rushed in, licked tentatively at his face and rushed away. The cool of the water was a blessing, the salt a stinging curse against his raw flesh.

The Plenty.

All the longing of an immortal heart was encapsulated in that single word. His shirt was still wrapped about his out-flung arm. The ragged fabric was heavy with seawater. He gathered it to his chest and crawled to her. The world was so dim, yet the afternoon sun still beat hot on him. Or was it hot on her? He managed to shake out the remnants of his wet shirt. He flung it over one of her gills. It covered such a small part of her head.

It eases me, nonetheless. We all thank you.

“We?” He mouthed the word, but did not think that was how she shared his thought.

My kind. I am the last who can save them. I am She Who Remembers. Even now, it may be too late. But if I am not too late, and I can save them, we will remember you. Always. Take comfort in that, creature of a few breaths.

“Wintrow. My name is Wintrow.”

The next wave reached them, lapping a trifle higher. She thrashed feebly in its touch and managed to heave herself a bit closer to the water. It was not enough. Selfishly he wondered if he could roll far enough away from her to stop sharing her pain. His own was quite enough. Then it all seemed like far too much trouble. He lay still and waited for the next wave to lift him so he could swim away to join his kind.

AT THE FIRST SCREAM, KENNIT HALTED IN HIS TRACKS
. “What is that?” he demanded.

The sound had echoed oddly. “I don’t know,” Etta had replied uneasily. She glanced wide-eyed around them. She suddenly felt very small and exposed. The path and the sheltering forest had been left far behind them. Here was only open sand and rock, glaring sun and the endless water. On the horizon, she glimpsed black clouds. The wind blew stronger, with a promise of rain in it. She was not sure what she feared, but knew there was nowhere to hide from it. She could see nothing threatening; the scream seemed sourceless. An ominous silence followed it.

“What should we do?” Etta asked.

Kennit’s pale eyes skimmed the beach in all directions, then glanced up to the tableland behind them. He, too, saw nothing. “Continue to the alcove rock,” he began, and then halted.

Etta followed the direction of his eyes. The creature she beheld had not been there a moment before. She was sure of it. There was nowhere it could have concealed itself, and yet now suddenly it was there. The erect part of it was as tall as Kennit, and a heavier sluglike body trailed behind it. As she stared at it, it flung out flexible limbs from its upper body. They were impossibly graceful, bonelessly unfolding, with outstretched long-fingered hands at the end. The fingers were webbed. Its body was gray-green and gleamed damply where it was not covered by a pale yellow cloak. Its flat eyes glared at them menacingly. “Go back!” it warned them. “Go away! She is ours!” The hissing, thrumming voice was thick with menace. Even the smell of the creature was frightening, though she could not think why. She only knew she wanted to get as far away from it as possible. It was too foreign. Too Other. She seized Kennit’s arm. “Let’s get away from here,” she pleaded, tugging at his arm.

It was like tugging at a statue. He set his muscles and resisted her. “No. Stand still, Etta. Listen to me. It’s a magic, a glamour he has cast at us. He suggests your fear to you. Do not give way to it. He is not so frightening.” With a small, superior smile, he tapped the charm at his wrist. “I am impervious to it. Trust me.”

She tried to listen to his words but could not. The wind brought the creature’s stench to her, a smell she instinctively recognized. Dead and rotting human. It revulsed her, as did the pressure of that flat-eyed stare. She wanted to cover herself, to be out of reach of those eyes. “Please,” she begged Kennit, but he had locked gazes with the Other. He shook off her grip with a strength that surprised her. He had forgotten her. She could run, if she wished.

She did not know where she got the strength to stand still and watch. Kennit baited the Other with a courage she found unthinkable. Crutch tucked under his arm, he first stepped toward it. It raised itself higher, spreading its wormy limbs. She could see the webbing between its long fingers. “Go back!” it warned him.

Kennit only smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “This way,” he told her and led her toward the trailhead for the forest path. Relief flooded her. They were leaving. As he trudged toward the path through the shifting sand, she slunk along at his side. Kennit kept glancing back over his shoulder at the creature. She did not blame him, but she could not bear to look at it. Etta caught the edge of his sleeve and he allowed her to cling to him as he stumped along.

He suddenly halted and turned to her, grinning. “There. Now we know. And we will beat the Other to it.”

She glanced fearfully over her shoulder. The creature was undulating rapidly over the sand, yet for all its effort, it seemed to move slowly. Again, the wave of terror shook her as the smell of the creature overwhelmed her. She could not still her shaking.

“Stop being afraid,” Kennit commanded her uselessly. “See how it hastens down the beach, as soon as it thinks we are fleeing. Whatever it seeks to protect is down that way. Come. Help me go as swiftly as we can.”

She closed her eyes in an agony of terror. “Kennit, please. It will kill us.”

“Etta!” He took her upper arm in a grip like a vise and shook her. “Do as I say. I will protect you. Now come.”

He positioned his crutch once more under his arm and then took off down the beach. He moved like a long-legged creature, swinging on his crutch as he almost ran. Stone and sand shifted under him, but he compensated. From behind them came a cry of outrage from the Other. When it was echoed, Etta glanced back fearfully. There were more Others. They seemed to rear out of the very earth or ooze up from the sand. She ran like the wind after Kennit. She stumbled once, her hands skidding on rocks and sand. She scrabbled to her feet, her palms stinging and her boots full of pebbles. She ran.

She caught up with Kennit just as they heard the second scream. Kennit blanched suddenly. “That’s Wintrow!” he gasped. “I know it is. Wintrow! We’re coming, boy, we’re coming.” Incredibly, he increased his pace. She loped at his side. The Other flowed after them, humping their bodies along as if they were walruses. Some carried short trident-headed spears.