As it happened, the members of the Sandrift village council who had joined the expedition were at that same moment contemplating many of the same questions as their changeling visitor, and having as little luck in coming up with answers. Having positioned themselves outside the ruins of the town hall, the conversation of the ten venerable mersons and manyarms alternated between expressions of commiseration for the fate of the deceased, whose bodies had been so rudely treated, and sometimes heated argument over what to do once the last body part had been properly disposed of.
It was amid this emotional and tactical turmoil that Chachel arrived, accompanied by the ever easy-going Glint and escorted by the far more somber pair of armed squid who had been sent to fetch him. Detaching himself from the ongoing debate, counselor Telnarch swam over to greet the hunter.
“What’s going on here?” Chachel nodded toward the discussion, the tenor of which was rising and falling with disarming irregularity. The shaman Oxothyr, he noted, was right in the middle of it all, verbally as well as physically.
“Having seen what has happened here and garnered some notion as to the gravity of the destruction,” the counselor explained, “we are trying to decide how best to continue onward to the relief of Siriswirll. Or indeed, even if we should.” Instead of the usual commanding tone, the senior representative’s tenor verged on the apologetic.
Chachel nodded once, briskly. “What has that to do with me?”
Telnarch’s voice shifted further down-volume, from the apologetic to the obsequious. “You have roamed farther than most who call Sandrift home, Chachel-hunter.”
“I never call Sandrift ho …”
“You have seen and encountered many things,” the counselor continued quickly, cutting him off, “that the rest of us would find alien and strange.”
Like me, Chachel thought, keeping the reaction to himself. “Go on.” He could see that the counselor was increasingly uncomfortable with the line of conversation he had chosen. Good, the hunter thought. Let him twist in the current awhile longer.
“We—I—the council would appreciate your input. We must decide how to move to Siriswirll and what to do if we encounter any hostile force.”
“So the council is seeking my counsel? How novel.”
Telnarch swallowed. None of this was coming easily to him. He held the testy hermit in no more esteem than did any of his colleagues. With the possible exception of the village shaman, of course. But then, as befitted a mage it was to be expected that Oxothyr’s tastes would occasionally run outside the mainstream.
“We would welcome any useful suggestions you might have,” Telnarch finished stiffly. It required an effort for the counselor to articulate the request without scorn. Remembering the number of bodies of the innocent that he had encountered that morning helped him to moderate his tone.
Coming from a counselor as respected as Telnarch, the request qualified as barely a step above outright begging. Chachel therefore condescended to render a reply. Conversation ceased as counselors young and old turned to pay attention.
The hunter had barely opened his mouth to speak when Glint zoomed in front of him.
“It’s a good thing you’ve decided to listen to us.” The cuttlefish started in without waiting to be introduced. “Whatever attacked Shakestone are like no spralakers we have dealt with before.” Waving tentacles gestured over the heads of the assembled. “See how the town hall was destroyed! Not just entered and wormed, but taken apart as if it was made of sponge.”
A smaller, senior cousin of the daunting Oxothyr, Councilor Vararem let all eight of his arms drift in the indicated direction. “Tell us something we don’t already know, idle-arms. We have seen the devastation for ourselves.” One set of S-shaped cephalopodan eyes glared at another. “Hopefully your limb-challenged companion will not speak so eagerly of the painfully obvious.”
Taken back but still defiant, Glint squirted a couple of sharp pulses from his siphon and backed up, once more relinquishing the water to Chachel.
“What Glint is trying to point out,” the hunter clarified as he continued his friend’s animated refrain, “is that this was no ordinary spralaker raid and that those who are responsible for it were interested in more than just pillage for the sake of spoils.” When he gestured, it was to take in the entire scene of annihilation and not just the ruined village hall behind them.
“What makes you believe so?” Bigger than the shaman’s assistants, the squid Golorn gestured with his two hunting tentacles as a deep blue flowed the length of his body.
Chachel was quick to respond. “Too many body parts left lying about.” His gaze traveled around the assembly, meeting merson and manyarm stares with equal assurance. “Spralakers may be inconceivably ugly, they may be innately nasty, but one thing they are is efficient and deliberate. On the occasions when they do manage to carry out a successful raid, they don’t leave anything edible behind.”
“Then why commit such oversight here?” Merson counselor Serenda’s hair was almost as long as that of the changeling, but black streaked with much gray.
“To frighten,” Chachel explained. “To terrify. To discourage any pursuit or thought of revenge.” Once more he indicated the carefully groomed and customized coral structures that surrounded them. “Why else expend the effort to destroy dwellings and storerooms, shops and schools?”
Oxothyr chose that moment to come forward. “I believe the hunter is right.” Cable-like tentacles motioned. “This was more than a raid. This was an effort to exterminate and to intimidate.”
“I don’t follow you, shaman.” Counselor Herremot rubbed at his short beard as he regarded the octopod.
Oxothyr looked past him, into the north. “Something is abroad in the world that has not been here before. It swims just beyond the edge of my vision. Every time I seek it and think I might be close to an understanding, it darts away quick-swift as a bluefin. I cannot get hold of an image of it. But this I do sense: it means to merson and manyarm alike no good, and it is spreading.”
Anxious murmurs arose among the assembled counselors. Bony hands lightly made contact with soft mantles while tentacles of varying length stroked arms and torsos.
“What must we do, wise one?” The only cuttlefish present besides Glint, Abrelorn was young but eager.
“I can drift and dream in my abode in Sandrift,” the shaman replied, “and hope explanation and answer come to me. Or,” he added more forcefully, “we can do what we came for. Fight, and perhaps learn from one of those who carried out this atrocity what lies behind their motivation.”
“Onward to Siriswirll!” Counselor Dyanbre thrust his spear toward the mirrorsky.
With varying degrees of enthusiasm the defiant cry was taken up by the rest of the assembled. Glint added his own exuberant screeching to the call as Sathi and Tythe chimed in with keen squeaks of their own. Only two among the gathering did not voice their zeal. Oxothyr refrained in order to maintain his dignity, and Chachel never cheered for anything.
But as the meeting broke up, the counselors dispersing to inform their constituents of what had been decided, the hunter drifted over to confront the brooding mage.
“I listen to your voice, shaman,” Chachel murmured quietly. “As your skin talks, I mark carefully the patterns and the colors. You speak of more than spralakers. You say you cannot see what is behind them or the uncommon ruination that has befallen this village, but I find myself wondering: do you have any thoughts on the matter that for whatever reason you choose not to voice to the majority of merson and manyarm?”
As his famuli hovered nearby, Oxothyr focused his attention on the hunter. “You are perceptive, Chachel. You would have to be, to survive and find food by yourself. Regrettably, I spoke the only truth I have. I see nothing.” Reaching out, he rested the tip of one arm on the hunter’s left shoulder. Chachel did not shake it off.
“The marks of the spralakers are all over the ruins of Shakestone. Evidence of their fury lies everywhere like a trail of slime. I onl
y know that there has to be more to this than what appears. I can taste it!” Suckers gripped the merson’s shoulder as the shaman’s grip tightened. “But I cannot see it. Until I can, we must fight not only spralakers but our lack of knowledge.” The arm withdrew. “Hunting solitaire, one learns how to fight. On my recommendation, the council will put you in charge of a squadron.”
Chachel backed water. “Coming from you, revered conjurer, that’s an honor. But I must decline. I take charge of no one but myself.”
Little more than a soft sack of flesh, skin, and organs, the shaman’s body shimmied in the current. “I understand. I am not pleased, but I understand.” Obtruding his siphon, he jetted away, flanked by his assistants. Glint came forward to rejoin his friend.
Poylee had watched it all from a distance. Too far away to overhear and too uncertain to understand what had transpired solely from the gestures she had been able to observe, she knew only that Chachel’s expertise had been called upon. Shunned until he was needed, she thought derisively. How typical of the council. At least they had eventually recognized what he had to contribute. She turned to rejoin the other volunteers from her neighborhood.
She, of course, had been touting the hunter’s attributes for years.
The general queasiness that had invested Irina ever since the relief expedition’s arrival at ravaged Shakestone continued to wax and wane. Convincing herself that it was not due to her system undergoing another sea change, she gathered up enough courage to start looking for possible remedies to her persistent nausea. Pills and potions failed to alleviate the fluctuating discomfort. When eventually she approached him for advice, Oxothyr told her that she was suffering from a sickness of the spirit: something only time and determination could cure.
Such counsel was of small comfort as she wandered among the busy mersons and manyarms. Everyone was working with a purpose. Everyone had something to do—except her. Having rediscovered a little of herself in the village, she now felt lost all over again. In a few days’ time, it was possible that many of her newfound acquaintances were going to die. Every bit as aware of this as she was, none of them had time for small talk or was in the mood for idle chat.
In due course she came upon Chachel. Characteristically, the hunter had found a place off by himself in one of the ruined homes. Who it had belonged to originally he did not know and did not care. There was no sign of Glint. She swam down to greet him. Entering the abandoned dwelling was easy. The roof had been torn off by some unknown, powerful force.
Not roof, she told herself. Oshenerth structures did not have roofs in the manner of buildings in her world. There, a roof was intended to keep out sun and rain and wind. None of those threats were present here. Dwellings existed to provide privacy. Weather consisted only of currents of varying strength. In a sense, buildings served the same function as clothing, only on a larger scale.
When she found him he was busy sharpening one of the half dozen long bone spears he had brought with him. “Hello, Chachel.” His acknowledgment of her arrival consisted of a curt grunt. She indicated the spears lying nearby. “You don’t use a bow?”
“I can,” he told her as he pushed the well-worn whetstone repeatedly along one side of the bone blade. “But I prefer the spear. I believe it’s more ethical to look into the eyes of the enemy you kill rather than to slaughter from a distance.”
The ethics of slaughter not being a topic she’d had much occasion to discuss, she chose not to pursue that particular line of questioning. Then what to talk about? Hovering nearby, she watched him in silence until the rope that had been wound around her innards decided to knot once again.
Seeing her grimace and crook sharply forward, he paused in his honing. “You’re feeling unwell?”
She tried to smile. The resulting expression was unflattering. “I don’t know if it’s something I ate, or just seeing all the death here. The decomposing body parts, the putrefying organs …” She swallowed deliberately, hoping to hold off the worst of the symptoms.
He turned back to his work, indifferent. “People died. That’s all. People die every day.” He gestured at their surroundings. “The only difference here is that more met their end as part of a mass killing instead of as individuals. Ask one of the villagers working as a server to prepare some of the scraps for you. Maybe if you eat a little of those who were here.…”
She threw up again. Not much this time, since by now her stomach was mostly empty. He looked on with interest. Apparently a changeling vomited no differently than did an ordinary merson. He remarked upon the similarity.
“You heartless bastard,” she snapped when she could finally speak again. Then she began to sob, her eyes stinging in the absence of tears.
His tone softened—a little. “Why are you crying, Irina?”
“Why am I …?” She fought to regain control of herself. “Oh, I don’t know. My world is gone, my body’s been transformed, nobody here likes me, I miss my home and my friends and my work, I’m stuck with people who eat everything and anything including each other.” She eyed him pleadingly. “I don’t want to be in somebody else’s war. I don’t want to be in anybody’s war. I just want to go home.”
“You think I want to be in this fight?”
She sniffed, sucked in ocean, and coughed, her gill slits flaring. “But I thought …”
“What? That I like to kill? It’s true I enjoy hunting.” With a wave of his hand he indicated the center of the devastated village where the bulk of the expedition from Sandrift had set up temporary quarters. “Like many others, I hunt to live, to eat. Not, despite what you may have heard or may think, for the joy of killing. The realworld is a cruel and indifferent place, Irina. It doesn’t care whether you live or die. You can fight to live, or you can become food for another whose will to exist is greater than your own. There are many out there, in the deep blue, who would be happy to relieve you of your anxieties. Life is a choice, not a right. Civilization is sustained by determination. It can’t survive on its own indifference.”
A little stunned, she blinked at him. “You—you sound like Oxothyr.”
Picking up the spear he had been working on, he studied his handiwork out of his one eye. “He would not be flattered by the comparison. Because I choose to live apart from others does not mean I reject knowledge. Or wisdom, on those rare instances when it can be found.”
Kicking lightly with her bare toes, she stirred sand and tiny mollusks underfoot. “I think there’s more to you, hunter Chachel, than you like to let on.”
“And I think you are a weak, nosy, irritating intruder whose return to her own place of being will certainly find both our worlds better off.”
Queasiness and fear gave way to anger. “You—you think you’re the only one who’s suffered a loss in life? Glint told me your story. You think you’re the only one capable of sorrow or deserving of sympathy? Just when I think there’s a spark of humanity in you, you say something like that!”
He frowned at her. “What’s ‘humanity’?”
“Something that doesn’t seem to exist here—or at least not in you.” Kicking hard, she shot upward out of the ruined residence. Once clear of the walls, she angled toward the center of the village. The last he saw of her she was swimming full out in the direction of a small knot of females.
Glint arrived not long thereafter. He hovered in front of his friend, staring. “Something’s the matter. Something has happened.”
“Nothing’s happened.” Setting aside the now razor-sharp spear, the hunter selected another and began working on its business end with the whetstone.
Turning maroon, the cuttlefish moved closer. “Don’t lie to me, Chachel. You’ve no one else to talk truth to, so don’t lie to me.”
He looked up. “It’s nothing. The changeling was here, feeling sorry for herself. Either she ate something that upset her stomach, or else she doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of work. She was seeking a remedy. Nothing more.”
Cocking an eye sidew
ays, Glint reached out with one tentacle to pluck a pair of passing copepods and thrust them into his open beak. “A remedy for upset guts, or for something else?”
The hunter’s expression contorted. “What are you prattling about, finger-face?”
Swallowing the snack, the cuttlefish commenced a slow ascent. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“You know how I hate facile accusations that are made without any subject attached.” Reaching up, Chachel took a half-hearted swipe at the rising manyarm. “Where are you going? You just got here.”
“To find the changeling and see if I can help.”
With a shrug, Chachel returned to his sharpening. “Why waste your time? Either she’ll get over what’s unsettling her or she won’t. It has nothing to do with you.”
Turning his tail end toward the center of ravaged Shakestone, the cuttlefish pushed water through his siphon and shot backward, leaving only a last observation in his wake.
“And they say that my kind are cold-blooded.…”
— X —
There was a sameness to the terrain near Siriswirll that troubled her for reasons she could not pin down. The feeling of disquiet did not leave as she helped, insofar as she could, other members of the expedition to set up the rest of the camp. An explanation for her unease did not occur to her until that evening, when she realized the scenery and the sights that surrounded her at this new location were every bit as fascinating, absorbing, and colorful as those she had encountered at Sandrift or, its destruction notwithstanding, at Shakestone. Beauty was everywhere: in the outrageously colorful fish swarming the reef, in the striking pelagics who patrolled its outer limits, in the sand and the rock and the crevices in the coral.
That was the problem.
As an occasional visitor to the underwater realm of her own world, she had been endlessly enthralled by what she had encountered there. Living, existing in such an environment on a daily basis, was leading toward her already becoming jaded. That was why the “sameness” of Siriswirll had unsettled her.
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