Oshenerth (27 page)

“Really?” She found herself staring at the exit Chachel and Poylee had taken.

“I think he was more irritated than troubled. Nevertheless, he opted to follow you to ensure your continued well-being. He thinks that you may in some way be connected to everything out of the ordinary that has happened since I saved you from drowning in the void.”

“
You
saved me?” she responded.

“Ah, I was correct. That
is
a smile. Both of us saved you, of course. I float corrected.”

She was thinking hard. “He followed me to look after me just because of that?”

“Of course.” Glint sounded guileless. “Why else would he do so?”

Why else indeed
, she thought to herself. “And Poylee?”

“The merson accompanied him for the same reason. Why else would
she
have done so?”

I can’t imagine.
This time Irina knew the cuttlefish would recognize her wider smile. Was he conversant enough with human/merson expression to also distinguish the real meaning behind it? If not, she saw no reason to point out that Poylee’s principal goal in life was to stick as close to the hunter as mersonly possible, lest he …

Lest he what? More useless, time-wasting speculation on a subject that did not interest her anyway.

“Are you feeling unwell, Irina-changeling? The look on your face is most peculiar.”

“I’m fine.” Maintaining an intentionally broad grin, she raised her voice so that her words resounded well above the pounding of the band. “I’m fine! And since I’m fine, there is much more of the city I’d like to see.” She extended her right arm. “As everyone seems to be so ‘worried’ about me—Glint, would you do me the honor of being my escort for the remainder of our resting time?”

Extending outward from the sucker-filled body, a pair of strong hunting tentacles serpentined around her bare arm. “I would be pleased to do so, Irina, since I am not presently interested in making the acquaintance of a mate-worthy female of my own kind. It is not the right time of the month.”

“How do you know? You can’t see the moonlight down here.”

“The moonli—oh, you mean the disc that breathes silver life into the mirrorsky. No, I cannot see it.” Another arm gestured upward. “But we manyarms know when the time is right. The knowing of it is born into us. You might say,” he added as his epidermis changed from orange to mauve, “that the why of it is a different kind of light that dwells within each of us.”

If only, she mused as they departed the establishment in tandem, interpreting the motivations of other mersons was as easy for her as was the telling of time for a manyarm.

— XVIII —

Squeezed into the very back of the room, his arms curled tightly about him, Oxothyr lay staring and shivering at the single opening.

Though he was considerably bigger than the mersons who had accompanied him all the way from Sandrift, like his fellow manyarms he needed only a small space in which to reside. The absence of bones—irritating, pointy, restrictive things—allowed him and his kind to fit into spaces seemingly far too small for their bodies. In addition, if he so desired, he could through the application of a modest piece of manyarm magick make himself thin enough to pass through the eye of a needle. Or in the case of fellow shaman-sorcerers, through the needle of an eye.

There was no need. The residential burrow he had been given was deep, dark, quiet, and suitably oxygenated. He reposed there in silence, attended only by his own thoughts.

These days those were not the best of company. The coldness he was feeling came not from the surrounding water but from within. Something Was In Motion, and it gripped him like plague. The suckers on his arms contracted from the tension and for the most part he kept his siphon tucked well inside his body.

He believed that his falling internal temperature was somehow connected to the sudden and wholly atypical boldness of the spralakers. By what means, only the Deep Oracle might know. The Tornal
had
to grant him and his companions an audience. Only they were possessed of sufficient sensitivity to establish the Oracle’s whereabouts.

He thought back over the singular events of the past weeks. The size of the spralaker forces that had invaded the southern reefs was unparalleled, as was their level of coordination and their tactics. Who was commanding them, and why? Prior to now, spralakers and mersons and manyarms had never engaged in anything more extensive than low-level skirmishes. The majority of clashes took place between individuals or small foraging parties. That the hardshells should now muster themselves in sufficient force to enable them to attack and destroy entire communities was extraordinary.

Outside forces were clearly at work. Did they somehow involve the surprising arrival of the changeling? Though he doubted it, he did not possess sufficient information to positively disavow a connection.

And what of that alien chill that continued to afflict him so deeply? Less sensitive to such subtle changes, the others did not feel it. But eventually they would, he feared. It had to be stopped, as the spralakers had to be stopped. And he must lead the way. Always he must lead the way.

He was tired, was Oxothyr. Tired of always having to provide surcease and solution. Tired of supplicants and complainers. Tired of constantly having to correct his famuli, who were presently mindlessly delighting in the glib pleasures of the city.

He could let the coming coldness take its course, could release the irksome mersons and common manyarms to deal with the spralakers as they saw fit. Why must he always be the one to give advice? Why must he be the one to whom everyone turned for resolution?

He knew the answer to that self-posed question himself. They turned to him for answers because he was the only one who had them.

He sighed, filling a portion of the unlit ceiling with bubbles. He was hungry. Crisis was never well met on an empty stomach. Arms, eyes, and internal organs he could sacrifice and still press on. But if ever he found his appetite waning, then he would know for certain he was in serious trouble. He started to ease his great bulk out of the impossibly small, narrow chamber.

Others were depending on him. Hundreds, thousands of others, from the villagers of Siriswirll to the nomads of the Halastweraa Pinnacles. Benthicalia itself was in danger. Only, none of them knew it yet. He wondered if the Tornal was aware. If so, he was likely to soon find out. He needed to.

Time was ticking away like a periwinkle caught in a current, never to be recovered.

He found Chachel relaxing, insofar as the hunter was capable of engaging in an act of repose, on a sponge lounge just outside the main dining area of the travelers’ lodge where the visitors had taken up temporary abode. The merson was finishing the last of a flatfish that had been seared in hot water piped in from a nearby field of black smokers. The cooking process had imparted a slight mineral taste to the white flesh that actually enhanced its flavor.

“Satisfactory to your taste, hunter?”

Chachel reacted to the shaman’s greeting. “Well enough. Different certainly from the food one gets at home. I am not sure I approve of this practice of ‘cooking.’ Will you eat?”

“In a little while. At the moment I am nourished by other things, most notably that one overriding subject which consumes the majority of my waking hours. And occasionally, I must admit, of some that are not of the waking.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Chachel downed the last of his fish, chewing methodically. “Myself, I never have any trouble sleeping.”

“You sleep the sleep of the just.” Disdaining a lounge while ignoring the lie, Oxothyr settled onto a pulpit fashioned of his own coiled arms.

“Hardly.”

“I hear that you had to extricate the changeling from an unwieldy social situation.”

The hunter nodded. “She may know much of the void, but here her ignorance never ceases to amaze.” He shrugged. “I preserve her because of your interest in her, nothing else. Glint is looking after her.” He licked sticky oil from his fingers.

“I appreciate your assistance. As I have ever since we left Sandrift. I fear I will be compelled to call upon it more than once in the days ahead.”

Unexpectedly, Chachel showed actual curiosity. “What happens if this Tornal helps us to find your Deep Oracle, and it in turn knows the cause of this coldness that keeps bothering you as well as whatever’s behind the spralakers’ sudden brazenness?”

“That will depend, my proficient twin-limbed killer, on the nature of that explanation.”

Chachel grunted. For once, he was displaying impatience and not impertinence. “I guess I can’t expect you to share answers you don’t have.”

“When I know, all will know,” Oxothyr promised him. He would have elaborated, if not for an unexpected interruption.

Even without its capacious stomach distended, the gulper eel was an odd looker. The several strands of deep-sea gems that had been attached to its rotund upper body sparkled in the light that illuminated the outside of nearby structures. With its enormous brown gut and tiny eyes it resembled an oversized internal parasite, though it was as efficient a hunter of small fish as any of its more physically attractive reef-dwelling namesakes. It was also excessively respectful. Hovering before manyarm and merson like a length of bloated, severed kelp, it bowed low before addressing them with deep-voiced formality.

“I bring the most remarkable news. I have been sent to inform you that at exactly midday tomorrow you have been granted an audience with the full Tornal. I hope you are aware of what an exceptional privilege has been bestowed upon you.”

“Thanks,” replied Chachel nonchalantly. The hunter was distinctly unimpressed.

Oxothyr was more forthcoming, and more tactful. “Please convey to the Tornal the gratitude of my companions and myself. Is the invitation restricted to me or may all attend? I know everyone would find it instructive and enlightening.”

Its empty belly sac swaying from side to side in the slight current, the gulper peered back uncertainly out of tiny eyes that had little use for anything more than minimal light.

“I was not told to say that their attendance would be rejected.”

Oxothyr looked pleased. “Then we will present ourselves at the designated time.”

Eyeing the watching Chachel with a disdain arising from the knowledge that despite the merson’s larger size the gulper could ingest him in one swallow, the herald turned and slithered off into the city. As soon as it was out of sight, the hunter turned back to the manyarmed mage.

“Do you really want everyone present for this, shaman?”

“It is everyone’s life that is at stake,” the octopus replied somberly. “Therefore everyone both deserves and needs to be present.” He turned back to the hunter. “Will you do me the good of relaying to them the specifics of our invitation?”

“That I can do.” Chachel turned to go, paused. “Oxothyr?”

The octopus regarded the merson archly. “What is it, two-arm?”

“Is it necessary for me to be present at this meeting? You know how I dislike being around many others in an enclosed space.”

“You can command your nerves for this one occasion. Don’t you realize the honor that is being conferred on us, on we simple visitors from a small village high up on the reef line? The Tornal keep to themselves and are not easily met. They do not agree to see just anybody.”

“With all respect, shaman, like the few other honors that have been sent my way this too is one I would prefer to decline.”

The mage spread all eight of his arms wide, increasing himself enormously in size and appearance. “Then if you won’t come for the honor, you’ll attend as an important fighting representative of the free swimmers of the Southern Reefs. I prefer those charged with the defense of everyone’s homes and everyone’s freedom to acquire information relevant to such security in person. And finally, if you won’t come for the honor or for the knowledge, you’ll come for me.”

Not even Chachel the Hunter could ignore the shaman’s subsequent cephalopodan glare. He proffered a resigned nod by way of response. “As you wish, shaman. Though I find your confidence in me to be grossly misplaced.”

“No,” Oxothyr replied brusquely. “It is you, Chachel, who finds confidence in yourself misplaced. One day I hope that doubt will disappear like blood in the water. Now go, and notify our companions. And when you find those two wastrels Sathi and Tythe, tell them to shut their beaks and high their tentacles back here. I have need of them.”

They parted then: Chachel upward to the next level of the city where the majority of visitors from Sandrift and Siriswirll had gone to indulge themselves in its urbane delights, Oxothyr back to his borrowed burrow to collect his thoughts for the critical meeting tomorrow. They left nothing behind them but light.

One by one Chachel tracked down the members of the escort that had accompanied him and the shaman on the long journey from Siriswirll to inform them of the critical meeting that had been arranged for the morrow. Reactions to the news varied among mersons and manyarms without regard to species. Some evinced excitement, others curiosity, a few fear, and others indifference. They had volunteered to come along to see, to learn, and if necessary to fight. Conversation and conferences they were happy to leave to the shaman. But with Oxothyr decreeing that they participate, none dared declare that they would be otherwise than in attendance.

As always, Poylee was glad to greet Chachel and reluctant to see him go. Learning that he was moving fast in order to carry out the shaman’s mandate, she knew she had no justification for trying to detain him. Though she wanted to, she did not try.

It was all so very unfair, she reflected as she eased back onto the outside lounge where she had been resting. She wanted nothing but Chachel, whereas the hunter wanted nothing, period. He was polite, even friendly in his limited and imperfect way, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how subtle she strove to be in her entreaties and invitations and inadvertent little touches, he did not respond. She could school with any male in Sandrift. Instead, she had chosen to try to inveigle a loner, and a damaged one at that. Everyone knew the story of Chachel’s life, of the death of his parents at the teeth of marauding sharks, and of his subsequent choice of a life of self-imposed isolation.

She could bring him out of that, she knew. Bring him to full flower and the richness of the life she sensed was locked deep within him. She could open him to the realworld as easily and effectively as a child could open a clam with a knife. If only he would let her. If only he would give her the chance.

Well, she would persist. Through indifference, and callousness, and even war with the spralakers. Eventually he would see her as she knew he could, and should. Eventually, she would break through the shell he had secreted around himself. Nothing and no one could stop her. She was not troubled by his apathy, she did not fear death at the claws of the spralakers, she was not worried about how much time it might take to make her dream a reality. Only one thing really concerned her.

The changeling.

With her long golden hair, her strange pale body, and her knowledge of another world, the changeling presented challenges Poylee feared she could not counter. Could not, because she knew nothing of them and could not understand them. How could she fight newness? Above all there was the one thing that left her truly apprehensive about the effect the changeling might have on her carefully nurtured relationship with the fearless and heroic hunter.

It was that the changeling did not appear to care about such matters at all.

O O O

Midday following was as dark as the midday that had preceded it. Without doubt or question it would be equally as dark as the midday that would follow it, and all those that would follow them.

The mood, if not the surrounding illumination, was bright among the travelers who had come all the way from Sandrift and Siriswirll. There had been no need to clean themselves preparatory to the incipient meeting. Underwater, everyone and everything was always clean. Having journeyed light, they had little in the way of individual frills with which to adorn themselves. Of them all Poylee, unsurprisingly, made the most she could of the opportunity, without even knowing if this Tornal gathering would respond. Her strenuous if limited efforts in the service of personal beautification were intended, of course, as much for Chachel’s edification as for that of some shadowy assemblage with which she was unfamiliar.

There was need of directions but not an escort. Chatting and murmuring among themselves and with Oxothyr setting the pace in the lead, the band of travel-hardened visitors made their way to the Palace of the Tornal. As they drew near, what had been excited conversation soon faded of its own accord. Oxothyr did not have to say a word.