Local cuttlefish remained secluded in their homes within the labyrinth of coral. Currents had swept away the remainder who had given their lives in the service of reproduction. Schools of bemused reef fish wandered unchallenged through the community, free for a change to pick and nibble as they wished at local dwellings as they searched for morsels usually off-limits to their kind. Beneath the brightly lit mirrorsky, the village lay clean and calm.
Not all were asleep or dead, however. Not everyone had participated in the previous night’s hysteria. Disinclined to work for another to earn his daily fillet and inherently unsuited to begging, Chachel had to hunt if he wanted to eat. The morning after Colloth, or one of the many other fetes that were so popular among mersons and manyarms, was always a good time to be out on the westernmost reef line because he usually had the best hunting spots to himself.
He had settled in at one of his favorite locales—a point where the last thrust of high reef protruded out into the blue. The currents sweeping around the promontory were a magnet for flavorsome pelagics. This early in the morning plenty of potential dinner was out and swimming. Aware of the turbulent celebration that had taken place the previous night, open-ocean swimmers who normally stayed away from the reef and out in the safety of deep water felt confident hunting in close, unaware that they themselves were being watched by a pair of eager predators.
Well, by one, anyway. Drifting just above a nearby stand of staghorn coral, Glint was neither eager nor in predation mode. His lateral fins barely rippling, he was, in fact, sound asleep. More irritated than disgusted, Chachel was forced to turn his attention away from the outer reef in order to repeatedly nudge his friend awake.
“Hmm—what?” Cephalopodan eyes cleared. “Is it food yet?”
“I haven’t speared anything,” Chachel growled by way of reply, “and for someone who’s supposed to be helping with the scouting you’ve been a non-presence.”
“Sorry.” Tentacles spread out in all directions, quivering as the cuttlefish stretched. “It was a good Colloth. A fine Colloth.” One eye focused, albeit tentatively, on the merson who hovered stretched out above the last piece of land before the drop-off. “Your changeling friend is a good dancer. If encouraged, she can do multiple spins. It’s wonderful to see that long hair stretched out behind her. Reminded me of the waltz of the golden garden eels, it did.”
“She’s not my friend.” Chachel made no effort to hide his annoyance.
“Well, she’s mine—I think,” the cuttlefish shot back. “Even if she is a bone bag and out of her element.” Advancing effortlessly, he halted just above and slightly behind his friend’s left shoulder and joined him in gazing out into the limitless expanse of open ocean. “Anything?”
“Many things,” an exasperated Chachel replied softly. “Whitetips, rays, big wrasses, some grouper. Enough so that I feel comfortable waiting for just the right meal and just the right moment.”
Glint nodded. Since he had no neck, mimicking the merson gesture required him to rock the whole front of his body up and down. “Maybe this is the right one now.” A tentacle gestured straight ahead. “I can’t imagine an easier kill, since it’s coming straight toward us.”
Trailing through the water a wake saturated with color, the rainbow runner was indeed heading directly toward them. How very odd, Chachel found himself thinking. Rainbow runners were swift, streamlined, open ocean swimmers. They sometimes came in close to reef systems, but not onto them. At any moment, he expected this one to turn aside and head north or south parallel to the coral ridge. Instead, it just kept coming. In fact, he realized, if it didn’t stop it was going to swim right into them. He was not particularly waiting for rainbow runner, but this one presented such an easy kill he could not justify passing it up. And their flesh was tasty. His fingers tensed on his spear.
“Get behind me, idiot!”
“What? Oh, right.” Half-asleep again, Glint let himself sink back behind Chachel and out of sight.
A steel streak, the sleek silver-sided fish showed no sign of slowing down or changing its course. Even as he prepared to make the kill, Chachel found himself wondering if perhaps it was sick. They would have to gut it carefully. A bad meal could lead to much worse than indigestion depending on which toxins a free-swimming dinner might have ingested prior to its death.
Then he saw the sharks.
There were two of them. Silkies. Big, husky, powerful swimmers. Since they were never normally seen this close to the shallows, it followed that they had been pursuing the rainbow runner from deeper water. He found himself hesitating. Taking on one silky, even if he could rouse Glint to help, would be a challenge. Tackling two would be foolhardy, especially over a single fish when there was so much other food ambling about. Letting himself sink down below the ridge, he intended to let both prey and predators swim right over him—assuming, of course, that the silkies would continue to pursue their quarry into shallow reef territory.
“Help me! For the love of your own, help me!”
He could see the blood now, trailing from a nasty gash just behind the runner’s left gill slit. It was also missing most of a ventral fin. No wonder the silkies continued to persist in the hunt. Strangely, the open wound looked more like a blade strike than a bite. In any case, he had no time to analyze it. The visitor had nearly reached the reef.
He hated it when circumstances gave him no time for contemplation.
Glint saved him the trouble. Ascending vertically, the cuttlefish was waving every one of his arms simultaneously, beckoning to the frantic fish. “Here, over here, color master!”
“Glint, don’t …!” Though only seconds had elapsed it was already too late. Trailing streamers of color, the desperate rainbow runner had already altered its course ever so slightly. Now it was definitely going to run into them.
He had no time to rebuke Glint. The frantic fish would duck down into their hiding place and the silkies would follow. Trapped in the slight depression in the reef, they would find themselves cornered together. Unless …
His back up against the coral, he started counting to himself. One, two … having observed the silkies swimming, he could estimate how fast they were traveling. Seeing their intended victim dip behind the slight rise of pale blue coral, they would be likely to put on an eager burst of speed. That would mean they ought to be …
Kicking hard, he shot upward, spread his arms and legs wide, and bulged his eyes as he flailed madly at nothingness with the spear.
“ARRRAGHHAAA!”
His timing was nearly perfect. One moment the silkies had been preparing to dive down to pluck their prey from among the coral—and the next, something that might have been an insane merson or a reef spirit or who knew what magically materialized barely a tail length directly in front of them. It was as if Chachel had sprung from a twist in the water, had stepped whole and entire from the line of a particularly dense thermocline.
Startled and shaken, both sharks whirled instinctively and vanished back the way they had come as fast as their tails could propel them.
“Well done!” Chachel felt a tentacle on his left ankle.
Kicking it away, he looked down angrily. “Yes, they ran. They might just as easily have bitten me in half. What were you thinking, calling the runner right to us like that?”
Glint shrugged. “I saw someone in need.”
“I saw dinner.” Chachel swam downward. “I still may.”
They found the trembling refugee backed up against a concealing, protective mass of yellow stinging coral. Longer than Chachel’s arm and twice as thick, the normally confident swimmer was a mess. Blood continued to dribble from the ugly slash in its side. Able now to take a closer, more considered look at the wound, Chachel decided it definitely was not the result of a bite; not from a shark or any other predator. As for the missing ventral fin, it looked as if it had been cut rather than chewed off. What had caused such peculiar injuries?
Confronting the runner, he was his usual tactful sel
f. “You came seeking help. Why should we not help you to dinner?”
Wide eyes flicked swiftly from merson to manyarm. “You are in danger. Both of you. All of you. Have me to eat if you will, but know that the normal order of things that permits such an understanding is itself at risk!”
Chachel frowned. He had never heard a fish talk like this. Especially not one fully aware that it was on the verge of becoming a meal. “What are you gibbering about? And what was that wild shout ‘For the love of your own’ about?”
Gasping for oxygen, the rainbow runner struggled to respond. Only after filling its gills was it able to wheeze a reply.
“Shakestone is destroyed! I—I have been sent from there to—warn you. To warn Sandrift and—any others I can reach.”
“‘Destroyed’?” Chachel took a closer look at the injured fish. Its attendant rainbow swirled behind its tail, a fitful swathe of trailing color. “You’re not making any sense, visitor. Shakestone is much larger than Sandrift, and they have sturdy defense nets. How can it be ‘destroyed’?”
Once more the rainbow runner struggled to breathe. Exhausted, clearly drained, he could only manage one word.
“Spralakers.”
Merson and manyarm exchanged a look. Then Chachel, his attitude having undergone an instantaneous and dramatic shift at the mention of that word, extended a hand. Trying to draw back, the weakened runner found it no longer had the strength.
Pulling the erstwhile meal gently to him and cradling it firmly with his free arm, Chachel spoke grimly. “You’d best see Oxothyr.” With a last glance backward to make sure the two silkies were nowhere to be seen, the three of them, hunters and refugee, started back toward Sandrift.
This was turning out, the stolid hunter reflected, to be an unusually busy week for the normally reclusive manyarm shaman. First the void demon found and then made into a changeling, and now this. Could two such singular events be somehow connected?
What, in the name of every snail track in the sands, was going on?
— VIII —
As they alternately carried and guided the badly injured rainbow runner, Chachel applied a thick salve from one of the many small containers he kept in his shoulder carryall. An extract derived from the internal organs of a particular sea cucumber, it was known for its ability to rapidly heal most wounds. It worked on the visitor’s injury, though imperfectly. Almost as if, the hunter thought, the gash had been inflicted by something other than a familiar fang or weapon. At least the bleeding was slowed.
That did not permit them to lower their guard. A patrolling shark could detect one part of blood to ten million of water. Thankfully, the visitor continued to swim in a reasonably steady manner. Violent twitches or other unusual muscular exertions could also alert discriminating shark senses.
Chachel did not allow himself to relax until they crossed over the Galas reef line and were back in the shallows. Here, where multiple inner reefs formed a vast network of intersecting stony ramparts and stubby bommies that reached up to the mirrorsky itself, it would be exceedingly difficult for a big shark to maneuver.
That did not mean the area was devoid of potential predators.
The green moray that began to emerge from its hole in the reef was as big around as Chachel’s thigh and three times the merson’s length. Its bright white fangs were sharper than the bone spear he carried and they protruded from jaws powerful enough to snap a hunter in half. As it writhed toward the returning hunters, its slightly bulging, unblinking eyes were locked on the tempting shape of the injured rainbow runner.
Turning to face the olive-green killer, Chachel adopted the posture of false cheer and took time to wave. “Good day to you, Miss Longslayer.”
Not two body-lengths away, the moray halted. As it sucked water, its massive jaws methodically opened and closed, opened and closed: death’s own metronome. Thick folds and wrinkles along its lower jaw gave it the appearance of a being much older than it was.
“Is that you, Chachel Loner? Yes, it is you.” Hungry eyes followed the wounded visitor as Glint continued to shepherd it onward and away from the moray’s neighborhood. “You have made a catch, but it lives still. I can kill it for you.”
“The guest is not for eating.” Chachel held his spear loosely, careful to keep its lethal tip aimed unthreateningly skyward. “Shakestone is deaded, so it claims, and we take it to Oxothyr so the shaman can extract the truth.”
“Rather would I extract its flesh.” The massive moray hesitated. “When the flaccid mage is through with his cavalier questioning, I would share in any outcome that involves a rebuke. The head, for example.”
“Should the visitor be found out a liar, I promise I will save the juiciest portion of him for you. Are we not friends?” He tensed slightly, tightening his grip on the spear. A glance showed that Glint and his injured charge were nearly out of sight, the only remaining hint of their presence being the weaving, fading rainbow that the visitor continued to trail behind him. The moray was lightning fast, but her kind preferred to dine in the immediate vicinity of their homes, and were not fond of extended pursuit through open water.
Still the giant dithered. Then she shrugged, a sharp sideways twist of her crushing jaws. “Always friends are Longslayer and Chachel Loner. Food is plentiful. Good talk is rare. Be healthy, my friend, and remember your promise.”
“I have more time to do so than most,” a relieved Chachel confessed.
Turning, the colossal eel slithered head-first back into her hole in the reef. It was remarkable to see such flexibility in a body so enormous. The hunter trusted the moray—he had known her a long time. But he still kept watch behind him as he hurried to catch up to Glint and the visitor. It was all right to leave a promise behind.
He did not want to leave a foot.
Slowing as he caught up to the others, he moved close to the injured visitor. “You had better be telling the truth, color-bearer. Already you have cost my companion and I a day of hunting, and an edgy exchange with a dangerous friend. It will be very annoying if you die before we reach our destination.”
Displaying humor as well as spirit, the rainbow runner’s reply was weak but clear. “I will do my best to comply.”
As they drew near Sandrift, they began to encounter villagers. Some paused to stare at the improbable trio. Others continued about their business, secure in the knowledge that anything than involved the notorious and short-tempered recluse was unworthy of their notice.
A small but commanding voice stopped them outside the entry tunnel that led to the shaman’s quarters.
“Halt or be anemonized!” Raising his two striking arms, Sathi confronted the arrivals with his usual brashness.
Glint advanced. Though the same length as the squid, he was more massive. “Drift aside, servant.” Gesturing tentacles indicated the barely alive rainbow runner. “This herald carries grim news that begs the audience of Oxothyr, and cannot wait.”
“What is all thi …?” Arriving alongside his counterpart, Tythe quickly appraised the confrontation. There was Chachel, the merson recluse; Glint, the half-mad manyarm troublemaker; and with them—a strange fish. It was the latter’s all-too evident hemorrhaging that decided him. Though much reduced in flow thanks to Chachel’s brief but effective ministrations, the rainbow runner’s life-fluid continued to leak into the water. A bleeding visitor was never a good sign. The last thing the famulus wanted was for one, its importance unknown, to expire on his watch.
“Let them in.” Several arms shoved Sathi to one side. As the trio started forward, Tythe welcomed them with a warning. “Be advised that Master Manyarms is tending to the changeling and may not take kindly to being interrupted.”
“He will when he hears what our visitor has to tell him,” Chachel assured the assistant.
Crossing through the entry tunnel and the open shaft beyond, they entered into the maze of chambers that honeycombed this part of the reef. While Chachel found himself immediately at a loss for direction, Glint’s
greater sensitivity led them straight to the wizard’s study.
The curving walls of the roughly spherical cavity were pockmarked with smaller holes and niches. Many held stone or containers of volcanic glass in a myriad of shapes, sizes, and colors. Where their contents could be discerned, they frequently eluded identification. Among some that could be recognized, the visitors often wished they had remained obscure. Fastened to the walls, clusters of bioluminescent salps and carefully cultivated phosphorescent zooplankton filled the room with light that was subdued but sufficient.
Hovering in the center of the chamber, the changeling floated with arms outstretched and head tilted sharply back. In the virtual absence of current, her golden-hued hair haloed her head as it fanned out behind her. Her eyes were closed. A carryall hung loose from one shoulder and the remarkable demon knife was strapped to her left calf. A dim purplish radiance encased her like the mucus of a sleeping parrotfish.
The bulky, bulbous presence of the shaman Oxothyr hung just in front of her. His eyes were closed as well. Eight arms outstretched encircled her body, forming a supple, sucker-lined cocoon. Weaving slowly, they were manipulating the violet glow as effectively as a musician would draw forth music from an orchestra; strengthening it here, dispersing it elsewhere. Neither conjurer nor changeling reacted to the unplanned intrusion.
Chachel and Glint exchanged a glance. Dare they disrupt a session so profound? Mightn’t there be consequences? It was left to their impatient visitor to settle the matter for them.
“Hurry,” the rainbow runner gasped. His breathing had slowed visibly.
Reluctantly, Chachel finned forward. Usually, nothing intimidated him. After all, what was the worst that could happen to someone under the worst possible circumstances? One would die, that was all. But this.…