Oshenerth (37 page)

A ripple ran through Oxothyr’s entire mantle. “I know the place. I have never been there, but I recall more or less where it is. Thank you, masters of arcane seeking. That is all we needed to know.” Pivoting in the water, he turned to leave and to take his friends and escort with him. Halting in the midst of the attentive gathering of fighters from Sandrift and Siriswirll, he paused to look back.

“If it would not be too much to ask, we
could
use some replenishing of our supplies. From here to the Pinnacle of Clariondes is a fair distance.”

“A very fair distance,” agreed another of the aged orthoceras.

“Considerably more than a fair distance,” commented a weathered ammonite sagely.

With a fluttering of her multiple arms, the Speaker indicated that she concurred with these opinions. “If there is anything more we can do …”

“Everything’s well enough done,” declared a curt voice from behind and apart from the group of visitors. Irina did not have to turn to identify the owner of the voice that had rudely interrupted. Chachel continued. “We’re finished here. Let’s get moving.” Without waiting for comment or response and accompanied by an equally fast-moving Glint, he turned and swam for the outer hallway.

“He is
so
impolite!” affirmed Poylee admiringly as she kicked hard to try and catch up to the hard-swimming hunter and his manyarm companion.

“And tactless,” added Sathi from where he and Tythe flanked the patiently retiring Oxothyr.

“Brave, courageous—and utterly devoid of discretion,” agreed the other famulus readily.

Irina considered joining Poylee but decided against it. Though she was an excellent swimmer whose magically augmented hands, feet, and legs had increased her speed remarkably, even on her best day she doubted she could keep pace with the irascible female merson. Instead, she found herself drifting closer to the more sedately leave-taking shaman and his supercilious famuli.

“So, Oxothyr, just how far away from Sandrift is this Deep Oracle we’re looking for?”

A black S-shaped pupil focused on her. “It matters not how far the Pinnacle of Clariondes lies from Sandrift, but how far it is from here. We are not returning to our homes.”

She was taken aback. “But I thought surely we would return, if only for a little while, so the fighters from there and from Siriswirll could spend some time with their friends and families before having to set out again.”

“Time is the one thing we do not have, Irina-changeling. The spralakers have been beaten here at Benthicalia. Where and when they may strike next remains a treacherous unknown.”

She considered that. “You think they’ll attack the city again?”

“Perhaps, or having been vanquished here they may choose to concentrate their efforts elsewhere along the reefs. It does not matter. The spralakers are a sideshow.”

Irina thought of the thousands on both sides who had just died or been maimed both within and outside the walls of Benthicalia. “Sideshow” was not a description she would have used to depict what she had just seen and experienced. Spreading her arms wide, she took in their immediate surroundings and by implication the rest of the city beyond.

“If this was nothing but a sideshow, then what do you consider a
real
danger?”

“That which comes this way and that I cannot discern. That which in order to identify we must seek the insight of the Oracle.” His gaze rose past her, to focus on something beyond her ken. “That which chills me in the dark and to which I can as yet assign neither description, meaning, or name.” A kindly arm snaked reassuringly around her.

“But come now. This is all new to you, and you must not fear the new but rather embrace it. The more you open yourself to the realworld, the more you will be infused with its meaning and beauty.”

“I’m trying,” she told him as they swam along together. “I’m really trying. Because I know,” she choked slightly, “I know I might never get home again, and that I might have to spend the rest of my life here.” She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “It’s a good thing I like the water.”

“How could one not like the water?” Tythe wondered from nearby. “The water
is
the world, and the world is water.”

“Not entirely.” Oxothyr corrected his famulus gently. “There is also the void.”

Showing his opinion of that, Tythe went black all over and let out a snort of ink.

“We cannot expend the time to return to Sandrift or Siriswirll,” the shaman explained as they left the audience chamber behind, “because the Deep Oracle does not long remain in any one place. It moves around. The Tornal’s best guess is that it is presently to be found somewhere near the Pinnacle of Clariondes. I do not know about your world, but Oshenerth is a very big place. Linger here or anywhere else too long to recuperate and celebrate and we might lose forever our one opportunity to seek out the Oracle’s counsel. Without it,” he concluded, “I do not feel that I can identify the true nature of the greater menace that threatens us all. And if I cannot identify it, then I most surely cannot foresee a way to counter it.”

She was silent for a long while, until they emerged from the palace back out into the crazy quilt of passageways that threaded the city from its uppermost level to the twenty-sixth one far below.

“It’s that bad?” she finally ventured softly.

“I fear so. The very order of existence is in danger of being upturned. We must seek to right it.”

A new thought struck her. “Why us? Why you? Why not the Tornal, or others better placed or more powerful or more experienced?”

“Because,” he explained to her as one would to an infant, “we do not know if anyone else, anywhere, has perceived it, and as I just informed you, we do not have the time to seek, ask, and look around to learn if anyone else has. We must proceed as if we are the only ones to have acquired this painful information. Those who acquire knowledge,” he finished, “are condemned to act upon it.”

That seemed to satisfy her. Or at least, she asked no more questions. Not that day, or the next, or on up to the time they finally took their leave of Benthicalia.

It was just as well that she did not, Oxothyr mused. Had she pressed further, he would have been compelled by various self-imposed oaths and promises to answer her to the best of his ability, even when he believed that to do so might not be in her best interest.

After all, how could he explain to her that despite her lack of abilities relevant to the present desperate situation he felt she was somehow destined to play a critical role in the hopeful resolution of the forthcoming crisis?

About the Author

Alan Dean Foster is the author of 125 books, hundreds of pieces of short fiction, essays, columns reviews, the occasional op-ed for the NY Times, and the story for the first Star Trek movie. Having visited more than 100 countries, he is still bemused by the human condition. He lives with his wife JoAnn and numerous dogs, cats, coyotes, hawks, and a resident family of bobcats in Prescott, Arizona.