—V—
As he finished the story, the last bits of crab shell fell from Glint’s parrot-like beak. They spun and tumbled like baroque pearls toward the bottom of the chamber. Tracking their descent, Irina noticed that the floor was layered with a dull whitish deposit of hollowed out crab and lobster shells several feet thick.
“Now you know how Chachel lost the lower half of his right leg.” His body pulsing with tints of black and gold, Glint faced the new merson. “It was Germael who killed the mako before it could kill him. But as it wrenched backward in its death throes, one of the sharptooth’s teeth took Chachel’s left eye.” Tentacles splayed wide, the cephalopodan equivalent of a shrug. “The villagers think him mad, but I know that he sees more with one eye than the rest of them do with two. Except for Oxothyr, of course. But then the shaman looks at things with other than mere eyes.”
Irina’s gaze rose toward the tunnel that was both the way in and out of the mage’s residence. “And he’s been bitter ever since,” she whispered.
“Bitter—yes.” Lateral fins rippling, Glint came close. This time she did not flinch away from him. “Bitter and angry. He feels the senior hunters should have prepared better for such an eventuality. Especially Jeralach, whose idea the expedition was. He blames them for the deaths of his mother and father—insofar as one can blame the dead. It has been many years.” The cuttlefish’s cylindrical body bloated momentarily in a heavy sigh. “Chachel should be mated by now, with offspring of his own to chide.”
“But the women—the female mersons—won’t go near him?”
“Not so.” One gold-flecked eye focused on her two. “He is the strongest hunter in the village, the best provider, and probably smarter than the other males as well. It is he who refuses to go near them. He will not even donate seed. He dwells outside the village proper and has as little contact with it and its inhabitants as possible. He lives in a cave. Not a proper merson home of carefully primed and groomed coral, but an actual cave. Myself, I think it reminds him of the cave at Splitrock. Of the last times he felt safe. Sometimes I keep company with him there outside of a hunt. But then, I am mad, remember.” Ten tentacles fluttered in mock-threat at her face.
A beaked cuttlefish could no more smile than could a clam, but she swore she sensed the expression even if she could not see it.
A massive, rhythmically writhing shape emerged from the dark cavity that scarred the far side of the chamber. This time she was not afraid. She had come to realize that Oxothyr’s bulk was exceeded only by his intelligence and compassion. The shaman’s body sac was a reassuring sunny yellow in a place where the sun itself was known only as a burning blot that hung high above the mirrorsky. Kindly cephalopodan eyes danced from newly-made merson to cuttlefish and back again.
“You two have been talking.”
“Not exactly.” Irina smiled. By now she was used to the salt water that passed unhindered between her lips when she spoke; a saline stroke of her mouth and tongue she felt she had been missing all her life. “Glint has been talking. I’ve been listening.”
The mage squirted a few bubbles from his siphon. “Our friend has short arms and a big mouth. I hope he did not bore you.”
“On the contrary.” Involuntarily, she looked back to the tunnel where Chachel had disappeared. “This is all new to me, and I’m learning a lot. That’s how I mastered my own profession: by watching and listening.”
“You would make a good famulus, I think.” Behind him, Tythe and Sathi immediately turned an angry blue-black. “But I am already rewarded in that department.” The mantle coloration of the squid pair faded to a more contented green with red splotches. “We will have to find something else for you to do.”
“What I want to do,” she responded tiredly, “is go home.”
“Of course you do. We all want to go home.” The shaman’s tone was consciously soothing. “But until that can be managed, if it can be managed, we must find something for you to do and a place for you to dwell.” Uncoiling like an awakening snake, one tapering tentacle gestured behind him. “You cannot stay here. Much as I might enjoy such unusual company as yours, I have much to do. Events are in motion that make no sense, and are discernible only through the contrary consequences they propound. Trying to understand what is happening so far from here demands my full attention. I cannot allow myself to be distracted by the fascinating conundrum your presence poses.”
Feeling herself flattered and dismissed in the same breath, Irina barely protested. “I wouldn’t be a distraction.”
The octopus flashed hot pink. “Your saying that you would not be a distraction is itself a distraction.” Two arms gestured commandingly at Glint. “Our unfortunate visitor will, I think, be happier in the company of a female merson.”
The cuttlefish gestured his understanding. “I know one who might fill the need, and who is bold enough to be both willing and sympathetic.”
Oxothyr’s body bobbed approvingly. “Then present our guest to her, with my appeal, and explain that I will contribute to the upkeep.”
With that the shaman whirled and disappeared back into his inner sanctum, a mass of arms trailed by his pair of beaming assistants.
Sandrift was not large, nor a tenth as impressive as a far southern city like Coreleatha, but it was strange and new and wonderful enough to take Irina’s breath away. When the reflexive response caused her gill flaps to flare, it was a mark of her speedy adaptation to her new marine physicality that she did not even react to the fluttering of the skin slits on either side of her neck.
Sandrift’s residences and commercial structures gazed out at one another across a broad and comparatively steep river of sand that started high up in the shallows and flowed downward to depth. Seeing it put Irina in mind of a dry, granular, yellow-white glacier. Except that unlike the tongue of a glacier, the sand river was in constant, if slow motion. A trickle would start and build to a tumble, a tumble to a spill, a spill to a rush that might last for seconds or minutes. Somewhere high above, she knew, there must be an enormous river that constantly deposited fresh material into the sand-filled canyon. Did anyone or anything live on the land here? What of the demons that had originally been spoken of? How deep was the connection of this world to her own?
She could not worry about that now. Glint was about to ask someone to provisionally take her in, and she needed to concentrate on making a good impression. Reaching up, she started to fiddle with her hair. If nothing else, the pointless activity turned out to be good for a quiet laugh. She had no comb, no gel, no spray, and it would not have mattered if she did. Here, underwater, her blonde tresses hovered around her head in an undisciplined aura, like so much golden seaweed. In this alien underwater realm, or for that matter in any underwater realm, terrestrial makeup was about as useful as a television.
She soon saw that the practice of personal adornment was not entirely absent from merson culture, however. Stylish jewelry was present in plenty. Bracelets, rings, necklaces, earrings—all were visible in abundance on the females she encountered as well as on many of the males. Some of the women wore strings of naturally radiant salps around their necks, blue and red being the most common bioluminescence hues. Others sported bracelets of complaisant comb jellies that flashed bands of rippling iridescence. One mature female had so many fastened around one ankle that as she swam she appeared to be dragging a strand of pulsating neon lights behind her. Each of the town’s residents also carried one or two small woven or shell bags slung crosswise over their shoulders.
Some of Sandrift’s manyarm inhabitants also sported individual ornamentation. In the case of several perambulating squid, their ability to change the color and patterns of their bodies combined with clusters of luminescent ctenophores attached to their mantles to produce blazes of tentacular glory that gave them the appearance of drifting pieces of an exploded casino.
Individual homes and businesses sported larger, if generally less elaborate decoration. While Oxothyr’s enchantment had gifted Irina with the ability to breathe underwater, it had not enabled her to read the sweeping script she saw chiseled into tidy coralline walls, spelled out by transplanted anemones, or written in enchanted cephalopodan inks. Beyond their chromatic expressionist facade, signs that fluttered with the canyon current meant nothing to her. As she marveled at it all, Glint was happy to translate.
Both banks of the underwater sand river were lined with busy establishments selling everything from tools whose function Irina occasionally recognized, to distinctive foodstuffs she did not, to inventory whose purpose she found utterly unfamiliar. While the entrances to some shops were of normal size, shape, and location, others had their doorways in the roof. Nearly every window boasted a screen of fabric woven tightly enough to keep out all but the smallest intruders. Where human habitations suffered from infestations of insects and rodents, here problems consisted of tiny nibbling fish and curious crustaceans.
The dwelling Glint headed for was set on one of several parallel coral ridges that extended outward from the main reef into deeper water like so many questing rocky fingers. The entrance was located on the side of the structure. As for the residence itself, like its owner it was neither the smallest nor the most impressive they had encountered.
Poylee was truly beautiful. A lustrous blue-black, her hair was even longer than Irina’s. Her eyes glistened green as peridots, her cheekbones were high and prominent, and her mouth inviting. Her skin was slightly darker than that of the average merson, though not exceptionally so. The outer edge of each of her eight gill slits had been pierced and sported individual loops of polished paua shell. Flashy paua also decorated the customary small bag she carried over one shoulder.
Irina realized immediately that merson and manyarm knew each other. When Glint extended his two longer hunting tentacles toward the female, she unhesitatingly reached out to entwine them with her fingers.
“Good day, tickle-tips.” Her gaze shifted immediately to the drifting Irina. “Who’s this odd-looking friend of yours? Hello—my name is Poylee. How do you make your hair the color of mirrorsky light?”
Irina stiffened slightly at what back home might have been construed as a veiled insult, and just as quickly realized the ridiculousness of her reaction. “I don’t make it with anything. It’s my natural color.”
“Really-truly?” One short, sharp scissor kick of her webbed feet brought the woman practically into Irina’s face. Openly fascinated, she examined the visitor’s floating tresses. “I’ve never seen such a color on a merson’s head.”
“She’s not a merson.” Glint moved to join them. “Her name is Irina, and she is a morphed demon.”
“For the last time,” an exasperated Irina began, “I am not a …”
Having backed off as quickly as she had approached, the intrepid Poylee cocked her head to one side as she studied the visitor. “Truly-really? A changeling?”
Having no neck, Glint could not nod. Instead, the cuttlefish bobbed expressively. “Oxothyr adjusted her. We think she used to breathe void.”
“Astonishing-so?” Poylee continued to examine the new arrival closely. Feeling more and more like a laboratory exhibit, Irina finned backward, restoring the distance between them.
“Astonishing-true,” Glint confirmed. “Oxothyr avows that she cannot stay with him, as he is presently absorbed in investigations of great importance, so he was wondering if perhaps …”
“Why of course-sure!” Darting forward so quickly that this time Irina had no chance to dodge, the young merson wrapped both arms around her, spun the both of them thrice around in the water, and finally backed off. Her guest was left to stop the spinning on her own. “You must stay with me! How could anyone even think of you boarding with that squishy sac of soggy somberness Oxothyr! You can tell me all about the demon world …”
“I am not a …!” Irina tried to interpose, with no success.
“… and I will show you the craftshop where I work. The best quality adoration for the least amount of currentcy, and because I work there we can outfit you cheaply.”
“‘Currentcy’?” Turning away from her mildly overwhelming host, Irina eyed the studious Glint. The cuttlefish was presently beige with blue spots. Ever since the existence of ‘shops’ had been mentioned she had been wondering what the locals used for a medium of exchange. Some kind of pretty shells, no doubt. Perhaps cowries, like many ancient Amerindian tribes. “What is currentcy?”
“I don’t have any of it,” Glint told her. “Manyarms have little use for the artificialities of which mersons are so fond.” Ascending slightly in the water, he shifted to face Poylee. “Can you show her?”
Swinging her shoulder bag around in front of her, the effervescent merson reached inside. “I don’t have much with me.” Pulling out a closed hand, she opened it toward Irina and flashed a fistful of pebbles. The recently morphed void-breathing demon caught her breath.
Some of the pebbles had been given a light polish but the rest were otherwise untreated. Either she was looking at a handful of sea-tumbled glass, or else Poylee was flaunting a handful of the biggest, brightest alluvial diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and other gemstones Irina had ever seen. It was an infinitesimal sampling of the riches of Oshenerth, utilized for a common everyday medium of exchange. Her mind whirled. If she got home (“when” she got home, she corrected herself hastily), she would have to try her utmost to make sure she did so with a pocketful of the local currentcy. First, of course, she would need a pocket. Or the local equivalent.
She gestured at Poylee’s purse, or carrybag, or whatever it was called here. “Can I get one of those?”
“This?” Poylee’s bag happened to be made of shell. “Nothing easier-simple. I will take you tomorrow. Only the best for a guest.”
“You’re all right with me staying with you?” Irina pressed. “You’re sure it’s okay? I don’t want to be a burden on anyone.”
“No, no!” The female merson’s genuineness was exceeded only by her unreserved vivacity. “I insist-demand. I will show you off to all my friends.” Finning forward, she put a comforting arm around Irina’s bare shoulders. Her fingers felt of the material of the visitor’s swimsuit. “What is this strange garment you wear that is so unlike ours in form and manufacture?”
Irina tried to formulate a reply that would make sense in light of the observation that mersons wore only the briefest of fabric strips to conceal their modesty. “It’s called a one-piece. You wear it beneath your diveskin to …”
Pursing her lips, Poylee gestured down at herself. “I know what a dive is, and what skin is, but what is a ‘diveskin’?”
This was going to take some time, Irina realized. But before she could continue, the effusive Poylee was already bombarding the patient Glint with additional questions, the last of them being, “How—where did Oxothyr come to seek-find such a charming creature?”
Though a fine fellow and boon companion, Glint was not without his faults, one of which was a sometimes disconcerting tendency to speak before thinking. “Oxothyr didn’t find her. Chachel and I were out hunting when we saved her.”
The change in their hostess’s posture and expression was simultaneous and inescapable. Her voice fell and the smile that since their arrival had been as constant as the water temperature faded.
“‘Saved her’? You and Chachel?”
Glint repeated the bobbing affirmation. “She was lost, drifting, confused. We didn’t know what she was, except that she was plainly in trouble. We took her to Oxothyr, who performed on her a revision most profound. One that was necessary to ensure her survival. Now she is our guest until the shaman decides how further we can assist her. It’s very good of you to help out, Poylee.”
“Yes-sure.” The small fins on the back of the merson’s calves fluttered in a perpendicular parody of those that extended sideways from the cuttlefish’s lateral line. “It is, isn’t it?”
“Well then, I’ll leave you two egg-makers to get better acquainted.”
Glint did not turn to leave. He did not have to. All he had to do was stiffen his ventral siphon and shoot backwards out the open doorway, leaving in his wake rapidly dissipating eddies, a tiny arc of ink like an orphaned comma, and a gathering silence.
Her hostess’s sudden hard stare making her increasingly uncomfortable, Irina turned away and pretended to admire the decorated dwelling. Shells intact and halved were everywhere, some crushed together with rock and water-smoothed crystal to form images of undersea vistas and lifeforms. There were shelves but no chairs. A single piece of scavenged, powder blue shelf coral still attached to its base served as a foot-high table. Storage cabinets had been fashioned of slabs of coral and rock held together by glue of an unknown nature. Restrained by netting, two groups of bioluminescent fish were affixed to the ceiling, their internal lights inactive while the dormant swimmers awaited the onset of night.
Irina did her best to ignore the distance that inexplicably seemed to have sprung up between them as Poylee took her on a cursory, almost brusque tour of the rest of the dwelling. There was a small food preparation area that in the absence of any appliances or cooking facilities could hardly be called a kitchen, a sleeping chamber, another boasting an ingenious integrated system for performing ablutions and related activities, and a smaller room that she was informed would be hers for the duration of her stay. Throughout it all Irina had marveled at the number and variety of adaptations to a permanent life underwater, all of which Poylee considered ordinary or boring.
Truly, the newly preoccupied merson thought, the changeling knows nothing about the most basic aspects of daily life. Perhaps she was after all no threat. While Poylee did not let her guard down and her initial effusiveness did not return, her attitude slowly shifted from one of active dismissal bordering on open hostility to a cool, collected courtesy. The hunter Chachel had been known to accomplish many things by simply adopting a position of studied indifference. Surely she could do the same.
They were in the food preparation area later when Irina, desirous of proving herself a worthy guest (and also because it was the right thing to do), offered to help in making dinner.
“Just watch-attend,” Poylee told her. “Maybe you’ll learn something.”
Irina bristled. Back home she considered herself something of an amateur chef. But she was a guest here, in a place and time where her very survival depended on the good will of those around her. So she stayed quiet and watched.
In truth, she would have been hard-pressed to concoct anything edible given the tools and victuals available. Her hostess’s tone notwithstanding, Poylee’s easy skill with knives and skewers was instructive to behold. In less than an hour several dishes arrayed in the half-shells of giant oysters had been set out on the low coral table. Irina identified different oceanic plants prepared several ways along with chunks of treated meat that varied in color from white to gray. Utensils consisted of knives made from sharpened shell with handles of decorated bone, and skewers that were miniature versions of the bone weapons carried and used by hunters. A rack of tightly stoppered, calcareous tube-worm casings held liquid spices. Salt was not offered and, needless to say, unnecessary.
Sampling everything and finding that it varied from good to outright tasty, Irina did her best to lighten the mood as she and her hostess ate.
“Everything here is delicious, Poylee. I don’t know how to thank you for your hospitality.”
“Then don’t.” Almost angrily, her hostess stuck one end of a thin, sharpened bone in her mouth and used her lips to strip off the succulent mollusks it skewered.
The ensuing time on both sides of the table passed in uncomfortable silence before a determined Irina spoke up more forcefully. As she talked, hundreds of tiny bits of organic life drifted like flecks of powdered pearls through the light from the screened overhead opening.
“Look, you seemed fine with this arrangement when I got here. Then, all of a sudden and without any explanation you turned into a cold (she almost said fish) character. What happened? Did I do something? Did I say something?” Her heightened anxiety produced an odd itching sensation in her neck. It took her a moment to realize it was due to her gill flaps fluttering more rapidly in response to the need to draw in additional oxygen.
Poylee looked up suddenly, her gaze drawing even with that of her guest. “What did you think-consider of Chachel? The merson who saved you?”
So that was it, Irina realized with a start. Apparently not everything in this underwater realm was so radically different from conditions in her own world. She replied honestly.
“I thought he was brave, skillful, rude, and gruff.”
Her evaluation seemed to lighten the mood again, though Poylee continued to remain more guarded than she had been when Glint and Irina had first arrived. “So—you didn’t like him, then?”
“I owe him for helping me, but on a personal level I found him unpleasant and impolite. As far as convivial company goes, I’d rather spend time with Glint.”
Poylee smiled. It was not the open, unfettered, bubbly expression that had first greeted Irina, but it was a vast improvement over what had just preceded it.
“Don’t be too hard-heavy on him.” Stretching herself out horizontal to the plate coral table and floating just above the floor, Poylee casually plucked something small and whitish from within a covered shell dish, popped the squirming tidbit in her mouth, and swallowed. Irina flinched. “He has a good heart, but he has had a difficult-troubled life.”
“I don’t care. He didn’t have to be so rude. I didn’t do anything to him.” And I never will, she added quietly to herself.
Poylee was by now completely relaxed. Was her transparent interest in the one-eyed hunter typical of relationships here, Irina found herself wondering? There had not been a flicker of subtlety in the other woman’s reaction. Not that it mattered. The idea that she, Irina, might have something to offer the merson who had saved her life anything other than a sincere thank-you was absurd.
Time passed swiftly with Poylee showing her guest through the remainder of her habitation as well as bringing out for inspection some smaller, more personal items of interest. Irina looked and listened and committed everything to memory until awareness began to fade. Her mounting fatigue was hardly a surprise, she told herself. It had been a day she could not have imagined even from one of her favorite books. Did they have books here, underwater? Paper and electronics were both apparent impossibilities. Though given the kind of conjuring ability demonstrated by Oxothyr, she supposed that through magic, anything might be possible. One thing she did know for certain. She would not need anything magical to help her sleep.
Following a dinner more elaborate and even tastier than the quick lunch Poylee had prepared earlier, her hostess showed her to the small spare room that was maintained for guests. It offered shelves Irina would not use and screened openings cut in the coral wall to hold the belongings she did not have. She would keep her dive knife and the few other small items she retained from her now superfluous scuba ensemble close at hand while she slept.
Her bed—the bed turned out to consist of dozens of healthy sponges. Maroon, purple, yellow, and numerous bright shades in between had been transplanted to the floor of the guest room and coaxed into existing there side by side. Sometimes round, often irregular in shape, they had been kept trimmed back so that all were precisely the same height.
“Good night-sleep, Irina.” Standing in the doorway, Poylee offered a last smile that while not openly affectionate was at least tolerant. “Don’t let the sea lice bite.” Having delivered herself of that mildly ominous caution, she kicked once and disappeared down the hallway to the right.
Turning in the water, Irina contemplated her bed. Firmly affixed to the floor and walled off from all but the gentle flow-through current that kept the household clean, the riot of colorful living sponges beckoned. Sea lice, she knew, were tiny and dull colored. Even if present they were unlikely to bother her, though if disturbed they were as capable of any crab of delivering an irritating pinch. They were fond of concealing themselves in coral, on sea fans, and in sponges. Did some actually dwell in the bed?
By now she was too tired to care. Slipping out of her green swimsuit and hanging it from a projecting knob of branch coral, she kicked a couple of times until she was drifting above and parallel to the bed. Facing upward and letting herself turn horizontal to the floor, she sank downward until contact was made. While exceptionally welcoming, the tops of the sponges were also surprisingly stiff. Support and comfort, she thought sleepily. Such a sleeping platform wouldn’t work back home, where her out-of-water weight would compress the delicate sponges as if they were made of wet cardboard. She found that she had no trouble remaining in one place on the bed. The flow-through house current was not strong enough to move her; only to occasionally rock her gently.
She had almost literally drifted off to sleep when a pair of strange new sounds caused her eyes to flutter open. Steady and recurring, the first originated not far from her room. Bubbles, she decided, as she recognized the submarine equivalent of a familiar problem. Her hostess was snoring in her sleep.
The other sound continued to rise progressively in intensity before achieving a specific volume and finally leveling off. It was the underwater equivalent of dozens of unseen crickets chirping in a creek bed on a summer night, or a kitchen full of fast-food fryers all crackling and bubbling away at the same time. In actuality, the clamor arose from millions of tiny shrimp and other miniscule crustaceans emerging from their hiding places within the reef to feed by the light of the unseen moon that smeared the mirrorsky with silver.
Between remembrances of her hostess’s cheerful chatter and the continuous chitinous fizz that now filled the sea, her own thoughts and concerns fell by the wayside. Lying atop the bed of yielding sponges, lightly nudged by the current, she soon fell into what turned out to be the deepest, soundest sleep of her life.…
* * *
The water in the wide-mouthed cave that looked out over a lower ridge of reef was foul with blood and guts, drifting pieces of flesh, and indifferently cast-aside offal. The gory leftovers were sufficiently revolting to make Glint hesitate before finally entering. Not having a nose, he could not put a tentacle over one, and was reduced to perceiving the stink through his arms.
“Do you want to draw a frenzy?” he sputtered as he jetted into the opening, waving his ten arms to disperse the chum in front of him. “While you’re out here beyond reach of help from the community?”
“I am not beyond help.” Sitting on a flat, slanted rock that had been scraped clean of mollusks and other sedentary sea life, Chachel’s knife flashed and sliced as he continued to fillet the carcass of the blacktip. “You’re here.”
Pivoting in the water, Glint looked back the way he had come. Unlike the majority of dwellings in Sandrift proper, the entrance to Chachel’s cave was open and un-netted. There was nothing to protect against or even slow an attack from outside. Resident whitetips caused the cuttlefish no concern, but if all the diffusing blood, fish oil, and other bodily fluids should draw in a few big, hungry tiger sharks.…
Observing that the cuttlefish had turned a nervous white dotted with black, a dour Chachel hastened to assure his friend. “Relax. Do you really think I’d engage in this kind of butchery without first taking precautions?” He gestured toward the large cave opening with the hand that was not holding the filleting knife. “See any scavengers?”
Glint looked. Outside the cave, the usual chortle of reef fish muttered past, occasionally pausing to fuss over a pocket of food lodged in the coral. Anemones sighed zen-like as they sieved the gentle current. A large squat lobster emerged from a hole, caught sight of the cuttlefish peering in his direction, and hastily scrambled back into darkness. Meanwhile, the current carried a steady flow of blood, guts, and grue out into the open ocean. Yet of sharkness there was no sign.
“Precautions?” Glint made no attempt to hide his uncertainty. “What precautions?”
Halfway through the process of removing the blacktip’s valuable liver, Chachel waved the knife. “I’ve neutered the taste of the blood flow and the odor. It’s a smellsmudge I’ve been working on.”
Moving closer, Glint idly plucked a drifting strip of intestine before the current could carry it away and popped it in his beak. “You’ve been practicing more spells? Besides the usual minor hunting enchantments? Are you planning to displace Oxothyr? You’re a hunter, one-eye—not a shaman.”
“And I’ll always be a hunter.” Chachel reassured his friend as he returned to the bloody work at hand. “But as you know, I have a lot of time to myself.” He shrugged. “Time to spend at things like reading and studying.”
“Yes, the satisfactions of ornery self-imposed isolation.” Like a wandering eel, another span of tasty gut drifted by. Glint eyed the awful offal for a moment, then let it go.
“Regardless,” Chachel continued, “I have more time to meditate than most. I’ve been learning, asking questions.” He looked up from the messy labor, his one blue eye flashing. “What is it to you?” he growled.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the cuttlefish murmured. “Maybe I’m afraid of losing your charming company.” Spreading his tentacles, he sampled the surrounding water and was able to taste the minor spell. “Amazing! This could be a valuable protection for others, especially for other hunters. You could sell it.”
Chachel did not look up from his work. “Let them figure out their own defensive spells. Or make a deal with Oxothyr.”
Half of Glint’s arms pressed together to wave a negative gesture. “Ah, that’s how to endear yourself to your fellow mersons.”
“I’m not interested in endearing myself to anybody. You know that.” He held out a choice piece of pink-tinged steak. “Join me for dinner?”
Twin striking tentacles shot out to grab the proffered tasty before Chachel had finished speaking.
Later, as the rippling mirrorsky outside the cave began to darken and the reef’s day shift began to give way to the night dwellers, merson and manyarm took their ease together on a coral-encrusted ledge above the rim of the cave. Off in the distance, the lights of Sandrift were beginning to come to life. Some of the radiance was sourced by spells propounded by Oxothyr and others of his profession while the rest were generated by bioluminescent growths and creatures who were held in check by netting or similar restraints. It was a time for mersons to keep close to their dwellings and not wander afar. Killing machines great and swift haunted the all-embracing dark of the sea. Manyarms could make them out and sometimes flee successfully, but not the slower mersons. Better for them to stay at home.
Chachel was one of the few bold enough to venture out at night, but he was not stupid. He would do so only in Glint’s company, making use of the cuttlefish’s excellent night vision, and then only for a good reason. Having at present no such reason, he relaxed on the projecting spine of coral and contemplated the onset of evening. On the reef nearby, a trio of coral-noshing wrasses, resplendent in purple, cerulean, and yellow, were spinning their individual sleeping robes of mucus, designed to camouflage their appearance and hide their odor as they slept. Watching them prepare, Chachel suddenly turned to his friend and posed an unexpected question.
“The changeling. How is she faring?”
Glint’s golden eyes glittered in the fading light from above. “What? Why would you care?”
“I don’t.” Caught out of his characteristic indifference, Chachel looked away. “We found the demon-thing. We saved it. A mild curiosity, that’s all.”
“I—see. Oxothyr sent her to stay with Poylee. They were getting along extremely well when I left. Poylee will look after her until the shaman decides what to do with the poor creature.”
Opening his jaws wide, Chachel allowed an attentive blue- and black-striped cleaner wrasse to enter, inspect, and clean his teeth and the inside of his mouth. When he felt the hygienic procedure was complete, he tightened his lips and shooed the obliging finger-length fish away.
“Poylee will be a good hostess. If she doesn’t talk the visitor to death.”
Reaching into the pouch hanging at his side, he pulled out a piece of freshly prepared blacktip. None of the fish swimming back and forth in front of the coral came for it. Though he was inordinately proud of the smellsmudge he had been able to place on the food, he would never brag about it, not even to the tolerant Glint. It was not his way. In any case, he felt he had little to brag about. Biting down on the tender flesh, he tore into it ferociously and swallowed half in a single bite.
To an outsider it might have looked as if he was revenging himself on his meal.