The Skull of the World

A New Thread Is Strung

The Black Pearl 3

The Spinning Wheel Turns

The First Blow 15

Transformations 53

Eaten by the Gods 89

The Cave of a Thousand Kings 110

The Warp and the Weft

Dragon Flight 127

The Faery Road 154

Midsummer Madness 196

The Isle of Divine Dread 223

The Tapestry Takes Shape

Hunting the Cuckoo 241

Honeyed Wine 282

Tides of Destiny 323

The Ring of Water 357

Glossary 365

Author's Note 384

Nila dived deep into the ocean, his eyes wide open, his arms curved before him. The aquamarine water fell into violet shadows and the young Fairge prince plunged into the dusky depths, his powerful tail twisting behind him. His nostrils were clamped shut, the gills on either side of his neck flowing open and shut as he breathed. Little phosphorescent fish darted all around him, and he saw the serrated shadow of a giant swordtail pass below him. He glanced up and saw the surface of the water, gleaming and shifting more than a hundred feet above him. The dark shapes of fish soared overhead like birds in the wind, and all about him the flowers of the sea bloomed in the delicate shades of rose and cinnamon and blue.

Nila hung in the water, his hands moving deftly among the clusters of ugly gray shells that clung beneath the rock shelves. He took a sharp-edged coral knife from between his teeth and used it to pry open the shells, swallowing whole the live tissue within. Every now and again he grinned as he tucked a little shining orb inside a bag woven of seaweed that hung around his naked waist.

Something made him turn. A tiger shark swam toward him, the jagged rows of teeth bared. The tiny eyes were fixed with terrible intent upon the Fairge.

Nila turned and dived, his tail undulating gracefully behind him as he plunged through a curtain of seaweed and sea anemones into a deep grotto. The tiger shark had to turn abruptly, almost ramming its nose into the reef. Nila watched its shadow pass back and forth, back and forth, until at last it slunk away and there was only the blue glimmer of water.

The Fairge prince waited, his heart hammering uncomfortably. He had been too long underwater, but he dared not swim to the surface to breathe until he was sure the tiger shark had gone. He looked about the grotto, searching for another way out, and saw a great corrugated shell, all encrusted with weed and barnacles. He pried it open with his coral knife and found nestled within a large opaque sphere. He grasped it and then, with a twist of his silvery tail, swam for the surface.

The light filtered down all about him. He glanced at the pearl in his hand and suddenly stilled, even though his lungs were burning for air. Unlike the other pearls he had found, this one was a dark, smoky color, unusually large and perfectly formed. He rolled it in his fingers, frowning, then tucked it carefully inside the pouch.

Through the light-dappled water he saw the wavering face of a girl, her brown hair hanging down as she peered anxiously into the sea. He beat his tail more vigorously, leaping up out of the water to seize her in his arms and drag her in. Her anxiety melted into relieved laughter, and he kissed her smiling mouth, sliding his hands down her brown naked flesh, transforming into his land-shape so he could tangle his legs with hers.

She clung to,him, saying rather tremulously, "You were so long, Nila. What were you doing? I was worried ..."

He mocked her gently. "Afraid I had drowned? Fand! You know I am the best deep-diver in my family. As if I could have drowned in these shallow waters!"

"Even those of the Fairgean royal family can drown," she replied. "You could have hit your head, or been taken by a giant octopus. I wish you would not swim where you know I cannot follow."

Fand was a slim girl with the full-lipped mouth and brightly colored eyes of a human, though her fingers and toes were as webbed as any young Fairgean. Her straggles of wet hair hung down to her knees, and she wore only a belt of seaweed and shells hung with a little curved dagger. The daughter of a Fairgean warrior and a human concubine, she was a slave to the royal family and had accompanied the Fairgean queens down to the southern waters to assist in the birthing. Nila was there with the other young warriors to protect the women and newborn babies until they were strong enough to brave the long journey back to the icy seas of the north.

Nila kissed away her fears, turning so they could drift together into the shore, the gentle waves lapping against their bodies, the sand warm beneath them. The little cove was protected from spying eyes by high bluffs of rock, so for once they felt free to take their time exploring each other's bodies, whispering and smiling, teasing and pleasuring. Usually they had only a hurried coupling among the sharp rocks of the shore or in the cold, ghost-haunted ruin of the witches' tower where no one else dared go. This past month had been blissful for both of them.

Free for once of the idle cruelty of his many brothers, Nila had enjoyed sporting in the mild waters, diving for pearls and making love to Fand in the soft sand without fear of being discovered. Not that his father and brothers would disapprove of his relationship with the young half-human slave. That, after all, was what females were for. It had just never occurred to any of his brothers to look twice at Fand, who was considered rather useless, since she had not inherited the ability to transform into the Fairgean sea-shape. Her delicately formed features and sea-green eyes were too human to be beautiful, and there were plenty of full-blooded Fairgean women to keep his brothers occupied.

If just one of his brothers had suspected Nila was emotionally drawn to the halfbreed, however, they would have taken pleasure in taking her from him. They would have used her for their sadistic games, and then killed her when they had grown tired of the amusement of Nila's pain. The Fairgean princes had been raised to be brutal and ambitious, and there was much hatred and rivalry between them. It did not matter that Nila was the youngest of seventeen sons and a long way away from inheriting the black pearl crown. Life was hard for the Fairgean. Strength and ruthlessness were admired, and mercy mocked as weak.

Nila's mother had been a gentle woman, though, and she had tried to shield her son from the vicious contests of his older brothers. Since she was the least of all the queens and the Fairgean king had so many other sons to distract his attention, she had to some extent succeeded. Nila had grown up knowing something of love and tenderness, and when his father the King had gambled his mother away with the toss of a sea-stirk knuckle, Nila had been filled with inarticulate rage and anguish. Away from the protection of the Fairgean king's cave and worn out by the brutality of her new husband, his fragile mother had soon died, leaving Nila with a profound hatred of his father and his kind.

He had known Fand all his life, for she had served in the King's court since she was a child. This was probably how she had managed to survive without the ability to transform, for the King and his immense retinue lived within the shelter of the caves, where hot water bubbled and hissed even when icebergs drifted in the ocean outside. Although she still had to fight for scraps of food, Fand had a stone ledge on which to lie and so did not have to struggle to stay afloat in the rough, icy waters or battle for a place on the rafts. Nila's mother had been kind to her and given her the occasional fragment of fish to eat and rags of fur in which to wrap herself, and so Fand had not died of starvation or exposure as so many of her kind did.

They had grown up together, King's son and slave, and the callous gambling away of the gentle woman they both loved had united them even closer. Nila did not share his brothers' contempt for halfbreeds. He remembered well his half-sister Maya who had been kind to him before she had been taken away by the Priestess of Jor. He loved Fand more than anything else in his cold, barren life. She returned his passion with equal ardor, and so they kept their love secret with obsessive care.

Nila stirred and stretched, filled with contentment. He rolled over so he could look down at Fand, whose eyes were closed, a half-smile on her full-lipped mouth. "I have something for you," he whispered. As he drew the black pearl out of his pouch, she opened her eyes, the curve of her lips deepening. The smile faltered when she saw what he was holding. She knew as well as Nila that black pearls were worn only by royalty.

"We can hide somewhere along the shore until the pod returns north," he said urgently. "They will think we have drowned . . ."

She rolled over and hid her face in her arms. "In these mild waters? You said yourself it would be hard to drown here."

"There are always dangers, as you yourself said. We could make them think we had been eaten by carnivorous coral . . ."

"You know your father would never be satisfied unless he saw your body himself," Fand replied wearily. "You know he needs as many fully trained warriors as possible for the assault against the tailless humans. Besides, you are still his son. He would tell the priestesses to find us and they would look through their far-seeing mirrors and then indeed all would be lost.
You
would only be beaten and humiliated. They would kill me."

Nila's hand dropped, defeated. "I wish . . ." he began but Fand sat up, shaking back her long hair. "It is no use, Nila," she said flatly. "You are a royal prince and I am nothing. Soon the King will remember my existence and think to give me away to one of his cronies who does not care that I am a mere halfbreed. He may even take me for himself. He has always had a taste for human flesh, you know that, and the younger the better. And when that happens, I shall no longer kick and kick to keep my head above water but just let myself drift down into Jor's cold embrace. And you will fight at your father's side and be given other women as prizes and in time you will forget your old playmate and lover. Do you think I do not know that is how it must be?"

Nila protested, catching her hands and trying to kiss her, but Fand held him off, her eyes wet with defiant tears. "I do not want you to pretend we can ' ever be together forever and happy," she said. "I want what is between us to be always true and real. No pretense. No lies. Did we not promise each other that, right at the very beginning?"

"But I want you forever and happy," Nila said. "I'm only the seventeenth son, my father does not care—"

"Do not be so naive," she interrupted coldly, scrambling to her feet and brushing the sand from her arms. "He may not care for you but he is proud of his virility and of his sons' strength and skill. And remember what happened to your grandfather. Your father was the thirteenth son and yet he inherited after all your uncles were killed in the last disastrous attack on the land-hugging humans. Whole families were wiped out then and the Fairgean spent decades fighting to survive at all. His memories of that are as fresh as if the battle happened yesterday."

Nila was silent. He knew what Fand said was true. His fingers closed upon the black pearl and he said passionately, "I wish they all would die! Then I would be king and I could make you my queen and then we could be together forever and happy. I hate my father!"

"Be careful what you say," Fand said quietly. "You know the priestesses watch. Often I feel their eyes upon me. Come, we have been here too long. I must get back to the pod."

Kneeling by her side, he seized her hand, pressing the black pearl into her palm. "Can you not wear it secretly and know that I wish things could be different?"

Fand smiled down at him wistfully and swept her other hand along her naked body. "How could I hide it? What would I say when they found it? It is death to me to wear the black pearl, you know that." She lifted it so she could examine it, a perfect sphere the size of a storm petrel's egg and glimmering with smoky color. It was as large as the black pearl the King wore in his crown.

"It is beautiful. I wish that I could wear it proudly, saying to the world that I was your woman. But I cannot." She pressed it back into his palm, smoothing back the silky black hair that hung down his shoulders.

"Then I shall wear it!" Nila said. "So you shall know I am true."

"They will try and take it from you," Fand said in alarm. "It is provocative, wearing a black pearl like that! They will think you have ambitions for the throne. Remember how your brother Haji was murdered. If they do not challenge you in court, they will give you loreli fish to eat and you will die in agony like Haji did. Or you will find sea-urchins in your bed like they say your father's elder brother did, or a sand scorpion. Far better that you should offer the pearl to your father as a gift, though even that will be seen as seeking favor. You should throw the pearl back into the sea, give it as an offering to Jor that we may have fair weather for the swim back to the winter seas." She gave a little shudder, and Nila knew she dreaded that long, exhausting swim when everyone else plunged and dived through the waves as powerfully as the sea-stirks.

The prince looked down at the black pearl, weighing it in his hand. For a moment he was tempted to do as she said and throw it back into the sleepy blue sea, but then he shook his head. "No," he said with determination. "Jor himself led me to the pearl. I would never have found it had a tiger shark not tried to have me for its supper. I was driven into that grotto, I was meant to find the black pearl. If you will not wear it as a symbol of our love, I shall—and you shall know you are the queen of my heart."

She disregarded his sweeping declaration, clinging to his arm and begging him not to be a fool. All her arguments only made him more determined. "I shall have a care, Fand, I swear to you. Besides, can you not see into their hearts? You will warn me if they have evil designs."

Fand looked about her swiftly, and made a shushing noise. "Do you want the Priestesses of Jor to know what I can do?" she hissed. "Nila, the summer seas have gone to your head like sea-squill wine! I would rather be a slave than an acolyte of the priestesses. You must be more careful!"

Nila's expression sobered and he caught her to him. "I'm sorry," he whispered into her messy brown hair. "You are right. I should be more careful. Come, let us get back to the pod before they start looking for us and notice we are gone together."