The Red Wolf Conspiracy (57 page)

“There are many men here,” he said.

“Too many,” she said. “They've been coming for weeks, and more all the time. Always before, for centuries, men feared the murths and ghosts and spirit-tides, and hurried off. But these men are not afraid. There is an evil
ripestry
with them that breaks our spells. My father says we must abandon these gardens, where we have lived for ten thousand years—move south, away from the monsters. But our elders are too weak for such a journey. They'll certainly die.”

“You don't have to go!” Pazel said. “I know what they want. And I promise you, Klyst, they'll leave as soon as they get it. They serve a mage called Arunis. He's the one with the bad
ripestry
. But all he wants is some Red Wolf.”

The light returned; he saw her look of disbelief.
“That
thing? That old iron wolf?”

“You know it!” he said.

“Of course. It went down with this ship forty years ago, when my father was a boy. But the Red Wolf is … ugly, bad. Why would anyone care about it?”

“I don't know. But believe me, Arunis won't leave without it. Will you take me to it, Klyst?”

“Will you marry me?”

What could he tell her? The truth? That except for a few moments under her spell he had never thought of marrying anyone, never longed in that way for anyone, except (in moments of lunacy or insight) for a land-girl named Thasha Isiq?

Feeling rather a cad, he said, “I can't breathe water forever, now, can I?”

She beamed at him. “You can if you're with me! A kiss on the hand, that's good for a whole day. You can stay as long as you like. The others will be getting air-thirst soon, of course.”

“Air-thirst? What's air-thirst?”

Klyst just looked at him. Then she crossed her eyes and made desperate motions with her mouth:
gulp gulp gulp
.

“Drowning!” he cried. “They'll
drown
soon? We've got to find them! Oh, Neeps! Where are they, Klyst,
where?”

“Different places.”

“Take me! Please, hurry!”

Obedient as ever, she caught his wrist and tugged him out through the gunport. Her friend the scarlet ray was still circling the
Lythra
. Klyst gave a sharp cry and it swooped down on them like a thunderhead. As it passed overhead Klyst grabbed its wing just behind one eye, and she and Pazel were whisked away through the kelp at breakneck speed. Coral mountains whizzed by. The bathysphere flashed by like a golden apple. Then she let go of the ray and sank with Pazel toward a little trench in the seafloor.

“Too late,” she said.

The pair of boys from the bathysphere were in the trench, feet pointing skyward, dead. At the bottom of the trench was a bed of clams—monstrous clams; the smallest were as broad as dinner platters. Some yawned wide, pearls like goose eggs shining in their pale flesh. Two had snapped shut on human wrists.

Klyst swam up to the nearest boy and bit him smartly on the foot. “Still warm,” she said, chewing.

“Neeps!” shouted Pazel. “You've got to take me to Neeps! The other boy!”

Off they went again, flashing by a staved-in yawl, an octopus gliding among blue anemones, an anchor with a broken fluke. Suddenly the ray turned in a circle, halting.

“Blood,”
it said.

“Human blood,” said Klyst, sniffing.

Bakru! Spare him!
thought Pazel. “Where is it, Klyst?”

She swam in a circle, eyes shut and lips smacking oddly. She was tasting the sea.

“Hurry!”

Klyst stopped and looked upward. Pazel did the same. Halfway to the surface a body drifted, backlit by the sun.

“Neeps!”
Pazel raced upward, dazzled by the brightness above, fighting a sob that wanted to burst from his chest. He seized the body by the arm.

It was a Volpek. Pazel turned the dead man over. The mercenary's throat had been slit. Blood still trickled from the wound.

“Others, too,” said Klyst, pointing. Some yards away were three more Volpek bodies, sinking slowly. Among them, Pazel saw with a gasp, was the captain of the cargo ship. The water about him was clouded with blood.

“Your people did this?” Pazel asked.

“No!” said Klyst firmly. “We don't kill this way, with knives and mess. And we hide the bodies afterward. Humans fear most what they don't see.”

Who had killed the Volpeks, then? Had someone attacked the cargo vessel? He glanced at the sunny disc of the surface overhead.
What was happening up there?

Then he started—Neeps was still missing. “Onward!” he begged Klyst. “While he can still breathe!”

The ray bore them a little farther, to the mouth of a dark cave. Pazel caught a sickening glimpse of skulls and rib cages, and a well-fed eel. But no fresh bodies, and certainly no Neeps.

“He's not here, Klyst!”

The murth-girl looked surprised. “Vvsttrk always brings them here.”

“Well, she's turned over a new leaf! Klyst, he's my best friend! Please, think! Aren't there other places you do … this sort of thing?”

At
best friend
her face grew hard. “Neeps.” She said it the way one might say
mumps
or
hives
.

“Listen, girl,” said Pazel, “if he dies I'll be
very
unhappy. With you. Forever.”

The murth-girl's jaws worked. Then she called the ray back to her side, and together they shot off into the kelp.

Two minutes later they were at the stern half of the
Lythra
. She took him to the orlop deck, through a shattered door and down two levels, to what might have been the ship's brig. Old prisoners' bones (and a few not so old) lay shackled to the walls. That was all.

They checked the hold, the galley. Last of all, the captain's cabin.

“Pazel!” cried a familiar voice. Neeps was still breathing—and tied by his own rope to the foot of an ancient bed frame. “Get me out of here!” he cried. “That sea-vixen fooled me!”

Pazel was so relieved he pulled the murth-girl into a hug. She glowed like the full moon at his touch.

“You
let
her do this to you?” Pazel asked, turning back to Neeps.

Possibly the first boy ever to do so underwater, Neeps blushed. “She said she'd be right back.”

“Never mind. We've got to get you back to the surface. Help us, Klyst.”

The rope was no match for the murth-girl's teeth. As she chewed she stared at Neeps with unmistakable loathing.

“What's wrong with this one?” Neeps asked. “She looks like she'd rather eat me than set me free.”

“She's jealous,” said Pazel. “It's not her fault, exactly. Come on, your charm's wearing off.”

Out through the stern windows they swam, Klyst tagging moodily behind. The bathysphere was rising: in fact it was halfway to the surface. As they sped toward it, a lone diver plunged from its dark mouth. It was Marila.

No murth-magic had been done to her: she was holding her breath, and still looked far too weak to be diving. At the sight of the boys her eyes lit up with astonishment. She didn't smile
(could
she smile?) but still she managed to look as close to happy as Pazel had seen her. Dropping her sinker, she rose with them into the sphere.

The Volpeks gaped in amazement at the boys' return. From a shelf above the waterline, Mintu laughed. “Pazel! Neeps!” he cried. “I told them you weren't dead!”

“Two of us are,” said Pazel. “And Neeps almost made three. Do you hear?” He raised his voice to Volpek level.
“DON'T SEND ANYONE ELSE. I'LL BRING YOU THE WOLF.”

“YOUFOUND THE RED WOLF?!”

“JUST GIVE ME A ROPE, WILL YOU?”

Marila leaned close, whispering to fight the echo. “Hurry,” she said. “They're nervous up above. Something about a mist closing in. They're afraid it's black magic.”

“We shouldn't be here,” said Pazel. “Humans, I mean. It's not our coast.”

“Pazel,” said Neeps, “you're not still under that murth-girl's charm, are you?”

“Of course not!” said Pazel. Rope in hand, he dived. Klyst emerged from the weeds and all but tackled him.

“I thought you wouldn't come back,” she said, clinging to his arm. “Who was that ugly, wicked girl?”

“Nobody,” said Pazel, exasperated. “Klyst, you've got to let me have that Wolf. I swear all these men will leave the Coast as soon as they get it.”

“And you'll leave with them.”

“I have to, Klyst.”

“Then I'll follow you. I'll follow your ship.”

“This is nonsense!” said Pazel. “We're trying to stop a war! A
huge
war, do you understand? And that is
much
more important than you and your silly—”

But then he saw her tears oozing into the water again. Before he could find a word of comfort she broke down completely. “HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO!”

She tore out handfuls of hair, braided shells and all. Then she dived. Pazel gave chase, but it was like a kitten chasing a mountain lion. When at last he found her she was kneeling by the coral arch, tearing the orange worms from the rock and stuffing them one after another into her mouth. Their venom burned her lips, but she kept chewing, weeping all the while.

Pazel caught her by the waist and dragged her back from the arch. “Spit them out! Out!”

She put her hands over her ears.

“You heard me!”

Reproachfully she spat out the worms. “If you go I will die! I love you!”

“Tell me how to reverse the love-
ripestry.”

“You can't!”

“Is that true?”

She glared and glared. “You can. But it's not easy. And I'll kill myself before you do it!”

Defeated, he let her go. “Just show me the Wolf,” he begged. “As soon as they have it we can sit down and talk.”

“About getting married?”

“About anything you want.”

She wiped her eyes and pointed into the arch. “We buried it here long ago. It attracts the worms, and other bad things.”

“Right here?”

She nodded. “You can't dig it up, though. It would take you all day.”

Pazel sighed. “I was afraid you'd say that. Well, I'll go and tell the others. We can dig in shifts, and maybe—”

“No,” said Klyst. “No more humans.”

“Why not?”

“They'll be killed,” she said. “Very quickly. We start by using girls, but when that fails we have … other ways. Do you understand? My people won't wait much longer.”

Pazel peered into the kelp forest. “Tell me what to do,” he said.

Klyst paused, thoughtful. “Get ropes,” she said at last. “All the ropes you have. The Wolf is
very
heavy. When you come back I will tell you more.”

“What are you going to—”

“Go, land-boy Hurry.”

She glanced up at the bathysphere. He watched her for another moment: there was something she did not want to say. But he had to trust her—what choice did he have?

“Wait for me here,” he said, and rose.

He met the bathysphere just below the surface. At once he shouted to the Volpeks for more ropes. Neeps, Marila and Mintu watched him with looks of dread, but none of them said a word. Suspicious, the Volpeks threw him all the rope-ends they had.

“THE CUSTOMER DIDN'T SAY IT WAS HUGE.”

Not bothering to reply, Pazel dived once more, five ropes uncoiling behind him.

Was Klyst alone? For a moment Pazel thought he saw more than one figure near the coral arch. Then the darkness fell and he swam on by memory, and when he could see again there was no one beneath him but the murth-girl.

She flitted to his side and pulled him quickly down into a little rocky crevasse.

“I thought you said it was under the arch,” said Pazel.

“It is. Give me the ropes.”

Quickly she wound the ends of all five ropes around a coral knob. Then she backed deeper into the crevasse and beckoned him to do the same.

“Crouch down. Hold on.”

There was barely room for the two of them. She smiled to be so close to him, her serpentine legs against his own. She took on a soft yellow glow.

“Klyst,” he said stiffly, “we must go and get that Wolf.”

“We are.”

She grew very still. The sea too seemed to hold its breath. And then out of nowhere the scarlet ray shot by like a great leathery dragon, raked them with an indecipherable look, and vanished over the top of the coral wall. And in its wake came a storm of silver.

They were needlefish, thinner than broom handles and faster than arrows, and they blasted by a yard from Pazel's face in a school so tight it was like a solid body. The sound was like nothing he had ever known: a soft enormity, the pulse of a giant's vein. The school plunged right through the coral arch, blotting out all view of worms and urchins as they passed.

“What was all that for?”

“Ripestry,”
she said. “Don't move.”

The needlefish were gone. But then Pazel felt the sea begin to change. A gentle tug at first, then a stiff current like the recoil of a wave, flowing unmistakably toward the arch. Klyst put her arms around him. The current doubled, then doubled again. It was a riptide now, gushing quietly but with immense power through the arch. Sand rose from the tunnel floor. The vile worms began peeling away.

Embracing him, Klyst began to sing. In song, her voice and language were suddenly beautiful, and free of all fear. It was strange to hear joy in her voice, for the words were somber.

Mothers from out of the ancient cold
,

Fathers from fire descended
,

Bound to a destiny none foretold
,

Birthed us, the never-intended
.

Oh never, never again to be

Of this mortal world, this migrant sea
.

Children of lsparil's morning call
,

Sired on Night's feral steed
,