Oshenerth

by Alan Dean Foster

  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 p
erforming 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 vol
ume 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.…

  O O O

  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?”