Dragon's Bluff

by Mary H. Herbert

  What happened to the bright light, the blissful release, the cessation of pain he’d always heard was the transition to death? Had it all been a nasty lie?

  He vaguely remembered the net falling over his body and the terror he felt when he was dragged under the water. He could not remember coming back to the surface. Therefore, he should be dead. But this death felt like a dismal nightmare.

  “Hey, you. What did you say your name was?”

  The voice, hoarse and strained, came out of the darkness to his right. It sounded vaguely familiar, and he tried to search his memory for a face to fit the voice. The effort of thinking cleared a little of the fog from his mind and allowed the reality of his current predicament to seep into his awareness. He wished it hadn’t. There was something to be said for semi-consciousness. A name floated into his thoughts. “Kethril,” he whispered.

  “Ah, no. I think that’s my name. At least it was when they stuffed us in this pleasant little hole.”

  Ulin tried to put his feet on something and discovered he couldn’t. Panic welled up in a choking wash of confusion and fear. He thrashed wildly only to find that his body from the neck down was submerged in salt water. His hands and arms were bound behind his back, holding him nearly immobile, and what felt like a heavy metal collar was clamped about his neck to keep his head in a rigid upright position above the water level. The collar was attached to a heavy chain that must have been fastened to the low ceiling.

  “Easy, easy,” said the voice close by. “Be still and let yourself wake up. You took quite a nasty blow to the head on a rock when they were dragging us in here.”

  There was something reassuring and sensible about the voice in the darkness. Ulin clung to Kethril’s words and forced his fear back until he could calm his wild struggles and slow his frantic breathing. He spit some salt water out of his mouth. “My name is Ulin,” he said at last.

  Kethril chuckled, a hollow sound that echoed in the space around them. “That’s better. Short, useful, and yours.”

  “Where are we?” Ulin wanted to know.

  “An underground cave not far from the cove. I don’t know how the ghagglers brought us here without drowning us, but I sure wish they had.”

  Ulin tried to sort that out through the pounding pain in his head. “Why?”

  The man hanging beside him paused for a moment then said, “Because the ghagglers usually kill their victims right away for food. The only ones they bring to their lair are those they plan to torture for fun or use in their games.”

  Ulin did not like the sound of that. “Oh.” He could think of nothing more to say, so he hung in the water and concentrated on the pain in his head. He wished he had some of his sister’s mystic abilities. Linsha had been trained by the Mystics of the Heart to use the power of mysticism to heal her own minor aches and wounds. In fact, he wished she was there now with a joke on her lips and a key to this collar around his neck. With her talents, she could’ve eased his headache and gotten them out.

  “Back at the gaming boat,” Kethril said out of the echoing blackness. “What did you mean when you said you were my future-son-in-law?”

  “Ah, you remember that? Your daughter Lucy and I are betrothed.”

  “When are you getting married?”

  Considering his position at that moment, Ulin wasn’t sure there was an answer to that question. “We, uh, haven’t set a date,” he said honestly.

  “Why not?” the father of the bride demanded. “Didn’t you come all the way from Solace together? Why didn’t you marry her first?”

  Ulin had to admit to himself the thought had not occurred to him. He wondered belatedly if it had occurred to Lucy. He did not think he appreciated the tone of this line of questions, so he tried one of his own. “How did you know we came from Solace?”

  “News about the new sheriff spread quickly. I didn’t know who it was though.”

  “Would it have made a difference if you had?” Ulin asked irritably.

  There was a long silence before Kethril replied. “I don’t know.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit interested, a little curious about your own daughter? She’s quite a woman, you know.” Thinking about Lucy helped take his mind off his own misery, so he continued to talk to Kethril. He told him about meeting Lucy at the Academy of Sorcery and their years together as friends. There in the cold wet dark with the band of metal digging into his jaw, he described the arrival of the magistrate and the letter and their long trip to Flotsam, and last of all he told Lucy’s father how she became the Sheriff of Flotsam.

  After a while his spate of words trickled to an end, and he closed his eyes and let his mind drift. When Kethril did not respond, Ulin decided the man probably had passed out from boredom. He knew he’d talked too much, and sentimentality hardly seemed a trait Kethril Torkay would possess. Lucy’s father couldn’t have been interested after so many years separated from his family.

  But he was wrong.

  “You should marry her, boy. As soon as possible.”

  Although his voice was still hoarse, Ulin thought he heard a touch of wistfulness or perhaps sadness in Kethril’s words. Ulin did not bother to reply. All this talk had exhausted him, and the collar around his neck hurt abominably.

  He held still for a while and wished he could go to sleep. Unfortunately, the cold water was not inducive to relaxation. He felt chilled to the bone, and he knew if that condition continued his body temperature would drop and he would become lethargic, delusional, and eventually he would die. Somehow, in spite of the pain and exhaustion, that thought annoyed him. He did not want to die. He wanted to take Kethril to Lucy and say, “Here he is, now let’s go home, get married, have children, and grow old together.” He wanted more than anything in the world to live long enough to tell Lucy how much he loved her—just her. For the first time he accepted that the ghosts of his first wife and their son and daughter were still faithfully in his heart, but they were just those: memories, ghosts, pieces of his past that he would treasure. They were not of the present or the future. That was Lucy.

  Ulin felt a new jolt of strength course through his limbs. Both his wrists and ankles were tied with something that felt like rough, dried seaweed, but if he could get his hands free, he might be able to unlock the collar around his neck. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he tried to work his tied hands down and around his legs. It was easier thought than done. His muscles were stiff and numb from the cold, and although most of his clothing had been removed, his bound arms barely fit past his long legs. After much splashing and struggling, he finally squeezed through the circle of his arms and hung for a minute gathering his breath.

  “What are you doing?” Kethril asked from the dark.

  Ulin coughed out a mouthful of water. Instead of replying, he raised his hands above the water, closed his eyes, and chanted a soft incantation. It was a basic spell, one of the easiest works taught to beginners, and one he had been able to do since he was a little boy. Like most of his spells, he hadn’t been able to perform it properly since the trouble with magic began, but maybe just this once, it would work for him. He drew in the ancient power, forced it to his will, and set the spell into effect. Nothing tickled his neck or buzzed in his ear or drained the power away. The magic coalesced into a small ball and began to glow in the darkness of the cave just a few feet away from his head. He saw its glow through his eyelids and gave thanks. Ulin opened his eyes. The sphere of greenish light stayed in place and shed its soft illumination on the black water. It would stay there as long he willed it to remain.

  “That’s a useful talent,” Kethril remarked.

  Ulin snorted. “Beats card games.”

  Kethril suddenly laughed, and his humor rang in the small chamber. “You’re no player, that was obvious. And that reminds me, how did you pull off that little trick with the sleeping powder?”

  “A few things I learned from an old alchemist and my uncle.” Ulin swung around so he could see Kethril. Gods, he thought, if
the man looked that bad, how awful do I look? Lucy’s father hung from a similar chain-and-collar restraint that held his head slightly above the water. His eyes were sunken into deep pits of exhaustion, and his skin was deathly pale. His hair lay plastered to his head with water and darker rivulets that Ulin guessed was blood. A dark bruise discolored his right cheek and a laceration marred his perfectly trimmed beard.

  When Kethril saw Ulin’s expression, his white teeth flashed in the light in either a smile or a grimace. “Yes, boy. You look as bad as I do.”

  “My name is Ulin.”

  “As you say. So what is your next move?”

  In reply, Ulin grabbed the chain above his head and hoisted his upper body up so he could have a look at the chain and the roof above their heads. The cave was small, with smooth walls and a low, rough ceiling. Ulin hoped the tide would not fill this cave any more than it already had, or he and Kethril would run out of breathing room very quickly. A quick check showed him the chain was fastened very securely to the ceiling by spikes hammered into the stone, and the chain itself was in good condition. There were no rusty links to break or separate. The collar proved equally as solid. The latch behind his head was locked in a way that defeated every attempt he made to unfasten it. Discouraged, he let himself down into the water and gave his arms a moment to rest while.

  “How long have we been down here?” he asked Kethril after a time.

  “Hours, at least. Maybe half a day. I’m not really sure. They brought a few others with us, but I haven’t seen anyone else since we were put in here.”

  “Did you see Notwen?” Ulin asked, afraid of the answer. He hoped the little gnome’s death had been quick and painless.

  “No. He would be nothing but shark bait to the ghagglers.”

  Ulin let his breath out in a long low groan. “Gods, I wish we were out of here.”

  Like an answer to his wish, a hideous face emerged from the water beside him. Great staring eyes glared at him and webbed fingers reached for his neck. The creature was big, nearly as tall as Ulin, with a hinged mouth filled with fangs and scaly skin the color of rotting timbers.

  It snarled at him in rough Common, “Kill light, magic-maker. Kill it, or we snap your neck.”

  Ulin recoiled in fear and loathing and quickly obeyed. The light blinked out and plunged the cave into absolute darkness. He could not see the ghaggler, but he could certainly feel and hear him. More sea-sligs surfaced. He felt cold, wet fingers grab his arms and legs, and the collar came loose around his neck. He had just a few seconds to take a quick breath before the monster dragged him under the water. The cold and darkness closed over him. He wracked his brains for something to do, but he could not move, could not breathe, could not think.

  The ghagglers seemed to have some purpose in mind, for they hauled him through the water without attempting to kill him immediately. Ulin could not see a thing in the dense darkness, yet his captors had no difficulty maneuvering through the black waters. They swam easily and rapidly through what felt to Ulin was a series of underwater passages. His lungs began to ache. His headache returned in full force as his brain starved for air. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, and still the swim continued.

  The urge to breathe had turned to a craving when Ulin felt the ghaggler charge upward. Ulin’s chest heaved, and suddenly he could not control the urge to breathe. He took a great gasping breath just as his head broke the surface of the water. Gasping and choking, he felt himself pulled to a rock ledge and heaved out of the water. Kethril was dumped beside him like a gasping fish. They lay side by side sucking air into their starved lungs, grateful for the brief reprieve.

  Their captors cut the bonds around the men’s arms and dived back into the water, leaving the prisoners on the rocks.

  Ulin found himself in a cavern where phosphorescent globes provided the only light. Dim and pale green, the globes cast weak shadows against the heavy darkness. Ulin blinked the water out of his eyes and pushed himself to a sitting position. His stomach did a flip-flop and turned cold as the enormity of their danger became clear. He and Kethril had been brought to a huge underwater cavern and put on a rocky outcropping that protruded into a large lake. All around the lake, swimming in the water, perched on the stony shore, or crouched on nearby rocks were ghagglers large and small. Hissing and snapping their fingers, they watched their prisoners like sharks eye their prey. Their shining black eyes glinted in the phosphorescent light. Their fangs gleamed as they jabbered and hissed to each other in their own foul language. Every sea-slig Ulin could see was armed with spears, tridents, or short wicked knives.

  Beside him, Kethril rolled over on his belly and vomited a bellyful of seawater. “Oh, mercy,” he groaned. “I’m too old for this.”

  Ulin heard a deep growl behind him and turned his head. “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that much longer,” he said.

  Kethril lifted his eyes and saw the creature crouched on the rocks on the far side of their very tiny island. “Oh—”

  His last word was drowned in the roar of a large and very angry sea lion.

  Don’t move,” Kethril whispered to Ulin. “Don’t draw its attention.”

  “I think we already have it,” Ulin replied. He obeyed, though, and remained motionless on the wet rock, staring at the sea lion. “Look at it! The poor creature is half dead.”

  “We’re going to be dead if it decides to eat us.”

  Ulin barely listened. He realized, looking at the sea creature, that it was as much a prisoner as they. Sea lions were ferocious and difficult to deal with, and from the old wounds and puncture marks on the animal’s face and sides, it had put up quite a fight before it was captured and dragged to this cave. The lion half of its body looked matted and thin; the mane was tangled and streaked with dried blood. The fish half of its body had dried from exposure to the air and had lost its golden gleam. The skin was cracked, oozing, and probably very painful. It snarled at them again, revealing a set of powerful fangs.

  “I wonder why it doesn’t move,” Kethril said, his eyes still on the beast.

  Ulin craned his head a little higher and saw a metal fetter around the sea lion’s tail. “It’s chained to the rock.”

  A sudden startled exclamation burst from Kethril, and he yanked his bare feet away from the water. Ignoring his own order to remain still, he scrambled higher up the rocks.

  “Those brutes!” he cursed. He cradled his foot and examined the bloody gash on his heel where one of the ghagglers had stabbed him with a spear. The sea-slig swam away, sneering at him.

  On the opposite side, the sea lion bellowed in similar pain and pulled away from the water. It raised its heavy head and roared in defiance.

  “They seem to be provoking a fight between us and the sea lion,” Ulin said.

  “Winner to eat the loser and then be fed to those sharks,” Kethril commented bitterly. “I don’t like those odds.”

  Ulin made no reply. He could see the sharks cruising through the water around the rocky island. Ghagglers often kept sharks in their lairs as guardians, scrap disposals, and deterrents for would-be escapees. He knew with a certainty no one would win a confrontation on this island. Sea lions hated sharks with a passion and often went out of their way to kill one, but this poor creature would not stand a chance in this grotto, and neither would he or Lucy’s father.

  He was given no more time to ponder the situation. A large ghaggler reared out of the water near the sea lion and gave it a vicious jab in the tail with its trident. The wounded sea lion roared. Maddened with pain and fury, it turned on the first and easiest creatures it could see. It charged toward Kethril and Ulin, its claws unsheathed and the chain flapping behind it. It was only then that Ulin saw that the chain was actually fastened to a rock in the middle of the island, not near the water as he guessed. There was nothing to stop the sea lion’s attack, nothing to slow it down. His hand went instinctively to his waist where his sword usually hung and found nothing but a scrap of a loincl
oth.

  “Kethril, move!” Ulin shouted. “Move! Split up!”

  The older man scrambled to his feet. He and Ulin stood side by side for a heartbeat while the huge beast lumbered toward them, its small ears flattened on its head, its teeth bared. Around them, the sea-sligs hissed and whistled and threw rocks at the stranded men. At the last moment, when the sea lion’s claws reached for their bodies, the two men fled in opposite directions, leaving the sea lion to leap on empty air.

  Confused, it roared and swung its head to the left and right, trying to catch their scent, then it lunged after the warm, metallic smell of blood.

  Kethril bellowed in fear and tried to run to the far edge of the island over the rough rock, but pain lanced up his leg from his lacerated foot, and he stumbled and fell.

  Turning around, Ulin saw the sea lion go after Lucy’s father. Quick as thought, he scrambled after the lion, grabbed the loose chain attached to its tail, wrapped it around a boulder, then he dug in his heels and braced himself for the impact.

  The sea lion hit the end of the chain like a charging bull. The force of its sudden stop nearly ripped the chain from Ulin’s hands. It dragged him and the boulder a short distance before the sea lion collapsed on the ground only a few inches from Kethril’s bleeding foot. The force of its fall knocked the air from its lungs and for a few minutes it lay still, trying to breathe.

  Kethril wasted no time getting to his feet and out of the lion’s reach. He crawled around the gasping beast and made his way back to Ulin. “Our odds are not improving,” he commented dryly as he fought to stand upright. “I’d start a book on this fight and cover all bets made on us.”

  “Optimistic, aren’t you?” Ulin grunted. He wrapped the chain around the boulder again and kept a sharp eye on the lion. It could attack again at any moment.

  The older man tried to smile. “I live by the numbers, not philosophies, boy.”

  A sudden commotion in the middle of the lake distracted the ghagglers from their sport. Streams of bubbles erupted all around the island until the water appeared to be boiling, and the sharks vanished. Screeching and jabbing their weapons, all but the youngest sea-sligs dived into the seething water.