Nightpool

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  As he fumbled at ropes, whispering gently to the horses, loosing one and calming it, then loosing the next, he could see the dark shapes of the otters moving among the sleeping men, see the occasional glint of a steel blade as they confiscated weapons. A soldier snorted and turned over, and everyone froze. Several of the men snored. A soldier moaned, and Teb saw an otter back away. He had loosed one line of horses and begun on the other, the first animals moving off softly into the night. They had likely been loose on the pastures a long time; they wouldn’t linger here. Near to him a sleeping man rolled over, sighing. There was the tiny clink of metal against metal as someone worked too hastily. But the wind hid many mistakes. The horses stirred as he loosed the last of them. Then the owl came swooping and one horse bolted, then another. “Run,” someone whispered. “They’re waking. . . .” The horses wheeled and went galloping off, and even the wind couldn’t hide that thunder. Teb and the otters fled, the otters clanking now with their burden of weapons. Teb grabbed a handful from someone, another, until he, too, was loaded down. There was a shout behind them, some swearing, sounds of confusion, and then of running feet, too close. . . .

  But there was the cliff, and they plunged over its side, tossing the weapons down to the sand, grabbing at the stone as they climbed and slid down; and they grabbed up weapons again from the sand and dove into the waves and down, and it was very easy to dive, to sink, so loaded with heavy weapons.

  They came up inside the cave, Teb flanked and guided on both sides by swimming bodies. He sucked in air. He could see Thakkur now, a pale smear among invisible swimmers. He kicked hard to keep afloat, with the burden of the weapons. Then someone was pushing him toward the cave wall, and he clung there with one hand, clutching the weapons with the other.

  Chapter 16

  They stayed in the cave until the moon had set, then headed home through the black water, pulling the weapons behind them tied to driftwood logs scavenged from the beach. They had captured thirteen spears, eleven swords, and five good knives, as well as four good bows and two quivers full of arrows. They took the weapons to Thakkur’s cave, cleaned and dried them with moss, and polished the blades with fish oil to keep rust from starting, after their salty bath in the sea. Then they all slept the day around and ended with a big meal at sunset. Teb laid his fire in a niche in the rock above his cave and brought a pot full of steamed clams to the feast in Thakkur’s cave, where Thakkur hefted a sword and thrust with it, looking very pleased.

  “We will form teams of soldiers and train with the weapons until we are skilled both in the sea and from the cliffside.” His dark eyes shone with purpose. “And perhaps, in our own way, we will help against the dark.”

  For days afterward, otters crowded in to look at the weapons, hahing at their gleam and sharpness, and there was more than one cut paw from careless enthusiasm. Ekkthurian came and looked, and went away silent, and it would not be until the hydrus returned, hunting for Tebriel, that the dark otter would speak out again with his usual venom. Something seemed to go out of Ekkthurian after the stealing of the weapons, something to lay a hand on his vile manner and silence him. He sulked around Nightpool with Urikk and Gorkk, and the three otters fished alone, north up the coast toward Rushmarsh. Sometimes Ekkthurian was not seen for days, as if he slept the time away in his cave out of boredom and anger, perhaps. Early winter brought the runs of silverheads and squarefins. And schools of migrating seals and whales passed beyond Nightpool, and the sea was brilliant again at night with hidden flame from millions of tiny phosphorescent creatures. Teb practiced his swimming and diving, and holding his breath for longer times. When the water grew too cold to stay in long, he practiced with sword and spear, and when storms blew he sat in his cave, or with Mitta or Charkky and Mikk, weaving sometimes, for they always needed string bags. He ripped out the seams of his leather tunic, which had grown too small, and laced them with a two-inch gap, with strands cut from a bridle rein. And he made new flippers for swimming, for he had well outgrown the first pair.

  In these quiet times, he tried to delve deeper into the dreams that came at night, and into the sense of growing power that was with him now, heady and mysterious. What power? What did it mean? Was it linked somehow to the dragon? Or did he only imagine that? The power he felt was not of the body, but of the mind. Or, perhaps, of soul. Part of a magical force that, he thought, could be made to grow, could be used with astonishing wonder—if only he understood it. If only he had the courage to learn its source. And yet he could not truly believe what he guessed at. What was he? Who was he? What secrets had his parents never told him?

  Winter seemed incredibly long and severe, and twice the island was covered with snow, a rare treat. The otters spent days sliding down the snowy inner cliffs and never seemed to tire of the sport. Their heavy tails made fine sleds, and Teb found a driftwood board for himself and put away all other thoughts for the joy of days of sledding.

  But gales blew, too. And at last everyone moved into the center of the island again. The otters’ diet, in winter, ran heavier to eels, which could be dug along the shore where they had burrowed, and Teb learned to tolerate them roasted. Then the coming of spring brought fresh shellfish again and a more varied menu. Teb took to the sea with the rest, eagerly pulling on his flippers and leaping in to fish and play complicated games of skill. He learned to dive deeper, thrusting down with the power of the fins. “It’s all in knowing how,” Mikk said. “Small breath held in, then larger, then larger, before ever you dive. Until the last breath goes down into stretched lungs. And then hold that one as you drop down. Let out a few bubbles at a time until you feel comfortable—you’ll know when to come up, all right.” A diving rock helped, too, to weight Teb for deep dives, and he could drop it before buoying to the surface. He had built a new raft to put the rocks on, and the swords, and a collecting bag.

  He could not see as well underwater as the otters, or stay under as long, and he was constantly shaking the water out of his ears. They never did; their ears closed when they dove, just as did their noses. Teb examined Charkky’s ear to see how, and found a little flap of furred skin that drew closed when the water pressed over it. He was growing so tall he had to bend over to look, and that seemed very strange. All the otters seemed shorter now, and it made him uncomfortable to be taller than Thakkur, because he thought of Thakkur as tall. The old otter looked tall when he stood among the others. Thakkur held himself tall.

  “You are growing into a young man, Tebriel. Many human soldiers go into battle no older than you.”

  “Do you see me in battle, when you look in the clamshell?”

  “Sometimes. But the visions are vague and uncertain.”

  “What else do you see? I feel . . . I feel there are things about myself that are still hidden. As if my memory has not all returned.”

  “Or as if, perhaps, those certain things were never known to you?”

  “Perhaps,” Teb said. “What is it you see in the shell?”

  “I see the hydrus returning, Tebriel. I think perhaps my plan was not a wise one—to use you as bait.”

  “If it wants me, if the dark wants me, it will find me anywhere. Only, why does it? What am I, that the dark would want me?”

  Thakkur paced, staring out at the sunstruck sea. The water was calm and deep blue under the warm spring sky. A flock of gulls wheeled close to the cave, then was gone. Out in the sea along the underwater shelf, a group of otters was fishing, banking and twisting to snatch at a flashing school of silver sprats, the otters more playful than hungry. Thakkur stopped pacing and faced Teb, his back to the open sky, his white whiskered face in shadow.

  “You were alone with the hydrus in my vision, and I felt a cold fear for you. And I felt a sense of power grown great, Tebriel, under some terrible stress. Only, I could not tell whose power—yours, or the hydrus’s.”

  Teb sat very still.

  Thakkur began to pace again, his paws held still before him, his broad tail describing a white moon each ti
me he turned, his dark eyes troubled.

  “This time, Tebriel, the vision brings no certainty. This time I think you must follow your own instinct. You must leave Nightpool or you must stay, according to what your deepest inner self tells you.” Thakkur looked at him, frowning. “There is more here, of power and of meaning, than my poor visions can sort out.”

  ‘There is something you are not telling me.”

  Thakkur did not answer.

  “Why not? It isn’t fair. If you know . . .”

  Silence. They looked at each other for a long time, Thakkur’s gaze veiled and secretive, yet very direct, as if he held back only because he must. As if perhaps this was something Teb must unravel for himself, without being told—without help from anyone.

  “Because I must discover for myself?”

  The white otter nodded.

  Teb turned to stare out at the sea. He wanted to say what he guessed. And yet he was afraid to say it. One thing was certain, though. He would stay at Nightpool until the hydrus returned. No inner fear, no deliberation, could make him turn away now from facing it. For in some way, the hydrus was a part of the power he felt.

  Was it a power that could turn to evil as well as good? Was the hydrus a part of that evil? He knew he was drawn to it, to a confrontation impossible to avoid. The hydrus could make him lose a part of himself, and so he must destroy it.

  But it would be another year, nearly to the day he spoke with Thakkur of the visions, before they met, and the hydrus had swum a long way and wreaked great damage along the coasts of countless continents. Nightpool knew of the wars from the owl, and that Sivich had settled in well, in the three nations of Branthen just north of Windthorst. They knew that in the more northerly countries, other of Quazelzeg’s captains held strong power. If there was a resistance, it did little more than frustrate Quazelzeg, and there was no change of rule. Perhaps the heterhuman folk of the far lands on the other side of Tirror, and pocketed in colonies on the near continents, were moving in some kind of secret resistance. There was no way to know, for they were secretive and mingled little, in these modern times, with human or animal folk.

  The little owls came first and cried to beware, that the hydrus was near. Then they went away, content with their warning, lifting and tilting on the wind in close flight, screaming their hunting cry. Then the hydrus was sensed by vibration far out in the sea as a band of otters chased silver sea trout along the edge of the sunken continent.

  Thakkur appointed a double watch, two armed bands always on duty, and the weapons were kept oiled and sharp. The first time the hydrus came, it raged in from the outer deeps, driving hard at a band of fishing otters, diving when they dove, terrifying them until an armed band joined them, sweeping out to surround the great beast.

  They bloodied it and slashed its sides and tore a wound down one head. They could see the pale, healed scars where its throat had been cut before, and its eye injured. They had grown skilled indeed with the heavy weapons, thrusting and slashing in the water until it backed and fled.

  The second attack, four weeks later, brought it rising suddenly from the shallow landward bay, where it had come in deep and quietly in the night. It thrust up at the black sheltering rim of the island so the rock shuddered and the caves echoed. The defending otters leaped down onto it from the cliff and bloodied its gaping, reaching faces before it was driven back. One strong young male, Perkketh, clung to its neck and thrust at its head with his sword while others cut deep gashes in its leathery hide. But it killed Perkketh with one thrusting flip of its head as it heaved him against the cliff.

  The Ottra nation mourned Perkketh and made ceremony for him in the meeting cave and buried him in the cave of burial close beside the green marsh. They planted his grave with starflowers. And in his farewell prayer for Perkketh, Thakkur said words that set Teb to thinking in a new way.

  “Not of the sea and not of the land, the Ottra are wanderers all in that thin world that lies between. Each to its own place must cling, even in death must cling. And what comes after death when we rise anew, only a wisdom far greater than our wisdom can ordain. The Graven Light take Perkketh now and keep him in joy and in dignity.”

  The third attack by the hydrus was close to the north shore of Nightpool just at Shark Rock, as Teb and Charkky were coming up at dusk from gathering oysters. It was low tide, and the oyster beds were exposed far out into the sea. Teb could see Ekkthurian and his two companions moving along at the far outer edge of the oyster beds just beside the sea trench, dragging a string bag of oysters between them. When the hydrus came up suddenly from the trench, Urikk dropped the bag and ran, but it snapped up Ekkthurian and Gorkk, then charged Teb and Charkky and Mikk as the guarding band on the cliff swarmed down. Teb crouched, his knife ready. The hydrus shook the two otters it held, bellowing, and reached with its third head for Teb. Teb dodged and leaped away, slashing at the reaching face, and blood spurted. The hydrus dropped Ekkthurian, screaming, then dropped Gorkk. The otter lay writhing and snarling. The hydrus advanced on Teb, all its attention on him, holding him frozen with the stare of those six immense eyes; yet it did not reach for him, and knowledge filled him, in that moment, that it did not want him dead.

  When it did reach, it was gently, the middle head thrusting out, and its great thick lips mumbled over his face so he wanted to retch. He could not move. He knew it would carry him away, and his fear was so terrible it would be almost a relief to have it over with; then suddenly it lurched away as the otters attacked, thrusting and slashing: the otter guards from the cliff battled it back toward the sea. Teb was fighting beside them now. Otters leaped to its neck, and Teb leaped; they attacked the three heads until it bellowed with rage and twisted, flinging them off, and thrashed back into the deep sea. They stood looking after it, panting.

  “Did we kill it?” Charkky said at last.

  “I don’t know,” Teb said. “We hurt it, though. I think we hurt it badly.”

  Several otters were being helped up the cliff trailing blood, Ekkthurian and Gorkk among them. Teb could see Mitta hurrying along the high ledge, with half a dozen others, to tend the wounded. He stared out at the sea where the waters still showed pink, then turned away from the group of otter warriors.

  He walked for a long time along the edge of the water, rounding the island but seeing, in his mind, the wounded otters. Seeing Perkketh dead.

  These things should never have happened. They must not happen again. He knew, now, that he must go away. That this one time, Thakkur was wrong. He must lead the hydrus, not here to the island again, but away from it. When he had circled the island, and come to where otters were gathered outside Thakkur’s cave, he learned there had been two deaths more. Gorkk, and a strapping otter named Tekket, who left behind him a wife and four cubs. Teb went to Thakkur, then, and found him alone. He sat in the cave in silence as the white otter puttered about, his paws busy for the first time Teb could remember. When at last he turned, Teb could see his grief.

  “I am going away,” Teb said. “I will lead the hydrus away.”

  “No. We will kill the hydrus, Tebriel. Given time, we can. If you go now, every otter will feel that he has failed, will know that you led it away because we have failed to kill it.”

  “I will say that I go to search for my sister. That is true. And I feel—I would search for the dragon, Thakkur. The singing dragon.”

  Thakkur nodded, and again there was a long silence between them, as understanding grew. Then he said softly, “Yes. But first you mean to seek the hydrus.”

  “I must.”

  Thakkur turned away, to stare out at the sea. When he faced Teb again, the sadness robed him heavily. He studied Teb; and saw in Teb’s face the resolve that would not be swayed. He said at last, “Give us, then, this night for ceremony, Tebriel. A feast of good-bye. Such a gathering would ease the pain of leave-taking for all of us. Will you allow us that?”

  And so there was a feast, and gift giving, and Thakkur’s quiet predictions befor
ehand, which now came so clearly in the clamshell, as if Teb’s own increased power helped to bring them. For Teb did feel a power that excited him with its promise. And when, late in the evening, he sang the Song of the Creatures, he held the gathered otters silent and transfixed as he spun out living scenes of the speaking animals, amazing himself as well as them with the power of his conjuring. He felt his strength surging, felt forces within himself that he could not put shape to, felt skills begin to rise, filled with wonder and power. For long moments after the song was finished, the otters sat in awe; it was Ekkthurian who broke the stillness by rising to stomp away. Teb hardly noticed, for the sense of promise that filled him. Promise of a wonder he could not even name. A wonder that, now, gave added meaning to Thakkur’s predictions, which the old otter had spoken quietly while they sat alone.

  “You will ride the winds of Tirror, Tebriel. And you will touch humankind and change it. You will see more than any creature or human sees, save those of your own special kind.

  “I see mountains far to the north, and you will go there among wonderful creatures and speak to them, and know them.”

  Thakkur predicted threat as well as wonder. “I see a street in Sharden’s city narrow and mean. There is danger there and it reeks of pain. Take care, Tebriel, when you journey into Sharden.”

  The ceremony had made bright new songs tumble into Teb’s head, verses that captured, for all time, those moments of pleasure as the otters presented him with gold and pearls and polished shells and corals, verses that would bring their voices back years hence, and their gentle, bright expressions and funny grins.

  There was feasting, the special lighted torches Charkky and Mikk had made, the great fire to roast the fish and shellfish in his honor. They laughed, and played the otter games of three-shell and clap, and it was late indeed when all found their ways to cave and bed. Teb lay on his stone shelf staring out at the stars and hearing the sea. He did not sleep.