“Demon.” A recovering Poylee massaged her neck with her free hand.
“Changeling,” a relieved Irina corrected her. “You might say thank you.”
“I was getting to that.” Poylee looked annoyed at having the omission pointed out. “If I hadn’t been smashed, they would have held me above the mirrorsky until I drowned. I—thank you, Irina,” she finally finished. “You did save my life.”
Irina smiled. “You would’ve done the same for me.”
“No I wouldn’t.” Turning and lowering her spear, the merson kicked hard to rejoin the battle.
Watching legs and hips, fins and webbing recede in the direction of the fighting, Irina found herself in mind of an old saying. “’Tis better to deal with an honest enemy than a lying friend.” Like many old sayings, she was not sure she bought the premise. It was, however, one she apparently was going to have to live with. Scissor-kicking her legs and gripping her weapon, she headed off determinedly in Poylee’s wake.
By now the members of the expeditionary force had killed, wounded, or driven off the remainder of the attackers. Surviving rays and spralakers scattered. Out of the corner of an eye Irina saw one big bull ray snapped up, spralaker riders and all, by a fifteen-foot tiger shark that had been circling in wait among the coral. The ray uttered a single gasp as ragged teeth clamped down over its head, while those spralakers not immediately crushed or swallowed abandoned their ride for the presumed safety of the colorful coral labyrinth below. None of the mersons or manyarms pursued. Without a mount to transport them it was unlikely any spralakers would survive the long trek back to their place of origin. Those voracious and efficient independent operators the sharks would see to that.
None of the latter tried to make a move on any of the several injured members of the small expeditionary force. Not with armed fighters prepared and ready to defend the wounded. Besides, there were ample easier pickings. The reef beneath where the midwater skirmish had taken place was littered with the corpses of dead or dying rays and spralakers.
O O O
Despite the day’s success in battle, when the travelers settled down for the night beneath a huge stone arch fringed with thousands of brilliantly hued soft corals, Irina found Oxothyr sunk in as pensive a mood as ever. Nearby, his famuli were busily preparing dinner by stripping the shells from a pile of scavenged mollusks. In her still new, still alien surroundings there were often times when she had to force herself to eat, however visually unappealing the food on offer might be. One of her favorites was raw fish seasoned with cuttlefish ink, which Glint was happy to provide. It helped that as a surface dweller she had several times enjoyed variants of both dishes.
“Why so somber, shaman? We won.”
“What—oh, good evening, changeling.” His arms drifting aimlessly around him, as if he had forgotten they were attached to his body, the mage sat on a bulbous upthrust of dark green mushroom coral. Occasionally he would reach down to pluck out of one of the crevices a hors d’oeuvre in the form of a too-curious blenny, but it was obvious his thoughts and concentration lay on matters other than food. “Yes, we won.”
She settled down beside him, careful to take a seat on a much smoother, more rounded hump of brain coral. Somewhere overhead, the unseen sun was setting. Sharply angled sunlight piercing the perfectly transparent, unpolluted water was transformed into a shower of twinkling gold coins.
“Pardon me for saying so, but you don’t act like we won.”
A tentacle coiled in her direction, making the gesture that she now knew stood in for a cephalopodan smile. The shaman’s body morphed from a deep taupe to a more cheery fuchsia, with blue stripes.
“Take no notice of it. I am by nature a brooder. The corollary to great responsibility is often a chronic moodiness. I wish it were otherwise. I like to laugh as much as the next. If it’s amusement you want, I suggest you seek out the company of a cuttlefish. Of all the manyarms they are the most prone to comedy.”
“It’s not that,” she told him. Exhibiting a rare playfulness, the tip of another tentacle curled around her right big toe and tugged gently. She pulled back. “I think I can tell the difference now between when you’re worried and when you’re just thinking.”
One golden eye swiveled toward her. “Your perception increases beyond mere simple physical realities. Yes, I don’t deny it. Much about today’s encounter concerns me.”
“You’re afraid we’ll be attacked again?” Idly, she poked a finger at the flaring, multi-colored gills of the Christmas tree worms with whom she was sharing the brain coral. As in her own, more familiar seas back home, the thumbnail-sized parasols contracted sharply back into their burrows as soon as her fingers drew too near. Unlike those with which she was familiar, each time one here did so, it left a tiny annelid swear word in its wake.
“That is not it,” the shaman told her. “We should not have been confronted at all. Not here. Not so soon after Siriswirll. It implies that our intentions are known to, or at least suspected by, our enemies. Some of those who escaped today will render a report of the encounter. Inevitably, additional attempts will follow. Some may be less significant and less effective, but we are too few to cope with an attack on a truly large scale. Another encounter might not find so many of us surviving. Our strength lies in our ability to pass through the water between Siriswirll and Benthicalia quietly and unnoticed.” He paused as a dutiful Sathi offered him an armload of shelled mollusks. Popping one into his mouth, he spoke as he swallowed.
“We must endeavor avoid future attacks.”
“How do you propose we do that?” a new, high-pitched voice inquired.
Irina looked around. Chachel and Glint had come up behind her. Having asked the question, the manyarm was now engaged in munching on half a spralaker. It was not an orderly meal. Instead of removing the meat or shell, the cuttlefish had simply started in on one side of the body of his dead foe and was methodically eating his way across to the other.
Looking past her in the deepening twilight without excluding her from the conversation, Oxothyr directed his reply to the new arrivals. “We must go deeper.”
Merson and manyarm eyed one another. Chachel turned warily back to the shaman. “How much deeper?”
“Deep enough so that our enemies will not suspect that we have done so.” A long arm gestured into the gathering night. “Deep enough so that those who hunt us will not look for us. Down below we are few enough in number to pass unnoticed. Spralakers and mersons do not see well in dim light.” His gaze shifted to the feeding cuttlefish. “But manyarms do. At depth, we will have the advantage.”
Chachel was dubious. “The spralakers are not stupid. After today’s fight they will put even more scouts in this area, and are likely to offer a reward for information concerning our whereabouts.”
Oxothyr flashed vermilion understanding. “Even so, by descending below the level where they might expect to find us, we will greatly increase our chances of avoiding such unwanted attention.”
Using a tentacle to remove a leg from which he had stripped all the meat and casting the length of empty shell aside, Glint offered his own opinion. “I think it’s a clever move, commander of arms. Even if they know to look for us deeper down, they will have a harder time finding us.” He gestured in the direction of the main camp. “There are those, however, who are afraid of the deep. Even some manyarms who can make their own light to see by.”
Oxothyr was not dissuaded. “Cowards and children can go home. Swimming to Benthicalia was never alleged to be a picnic excursion over pretty reef and clean sand. I don’t want anyone with me who cannot commit.” His body had turned an angry reddish purple. “If need be, I’ll go on alone.”
Chachel kicked forward. “I am with you as always, shaman. I do not fear the deep, and I look forward to confounding our enemies.”
“For my friend,” Glint declared around a mouthful of white spralaker flesh, “that amounts to a speech. Me, I don’t make speeches. I just like to see new places—even where it’
s too dark to see them.”
Irina became aware everyone was looking in her direction, including the shaman’s two famuli. She felt pressured, but it did not matter. She had little choice, and if asked would have said as much. Truth be told, she would have volunteered to continue on anyway. Having already been exposed to multiple wonders, she was always ready to appreciate one more. From the descriptions she had heard of Benthicalia, including many that were probably more fanciful than real, it certainly qualified.
“Most will come, I think.” Oxothyr’s anger faded to auburn. “Some because they are brave, some because they are foolhardy, some because they are afraid of appearing afraid, some because they have lost friends in battle.” He eyed the drifting Irina. “Some may even come because they would be embarrassed to be overshadowed by a changeling.”
“You see?” Lateral fins rippling, body flaring with flowing black stripes, Glint turned toward her. “Already you are more helpful than you know.”
Yes, she thought bitterly. I’m an alien, a monster to frighten, intimidate, or embarrass. What wonderful talent. How heartening to be thought of as so useful.
So heartening that she did not go on to mention that ever since she was a little girl she had been afraid of the dark.
O O O
When they finally stopped descending and leveled off there was hardly any light left at all. That the sun and the mirrorsky continued to exist somewhere high overhead Irina did not doubt. But they were no longer visible. The realm of sunlight had been left behind.
As her eyes adjusted to the new conditions, she was barely able to make out the dim outlines of the mersons around her. The same problem did not exist for the manyarms. By activating the photophores within their skin, all were able to generate their own light. Surrounded by internally illuminated shapes glowing a ghostly blue-green, she kept pace without fear of getting lost. Weeks of continuous swimming had strengthened her leg muscles and tightened those elsewhere.
For sheer outrageous display of self-generated illumination, none could match Oxothyr. Jetting along backwards in the manner of his kind, the shaman toyed with flashing an extraordinary variety of patterns. While his companions could only generate blue-green, blue, or a few limited variations of red light, the mage was able to produce an entire rainbow of colors. It was the first time Irina had ever seen him engage in anything akin to showing off. One evening (she assumed it was evening because they had stopped to sleep), she ventured to compliment him on the colorful displays.
“It’s beautiful, Oxothyr. I wish I could do something like it. I’ve always admired cephalopodan bioluminescence. Before now it was always from a distance, or in pictures.” She had to force herself to keep her vision from wandering out into the utter and complete blackness that enveloped the camp. “When night dives were offered, I always declined.”
Resting comfortably nearby, the shaman turned an intense shade of cobalt blue. “Perhaps if you could generate your own light, like a manyarm, you would be less afraid of the Oshenerth night.”
She looked away. “Maybe. I don’t know. In any case, it doesn’t matter. I’ll have to settle for admiring your lights.” Noticing the two famuli busy nearby, she added, “And Sathi and Tythe’s too, of course.”
In response, both stopped what they were doing to zip over to the changeling in their midst.
“Sweet visitor,” Tythe whispered, “I would lend you my lights if I could.”
“Try this.” Halting close to her, Sathi promptly ejected several small bubbles of ink—the cephalopodan equivalent of a human blowing smoke rings. Jet black in daylight, at depth the liquid glowed a beautiful bright chartreuse. As the bubbles drifted around her head, a captivated Irina found herself encircled by liquid light. It was intense enough to illuminate her hands, arms, and torso. Had she been in possession of a book, she could have read by the organic radiance. As the bubbles began to fade she waved a hand through several, stirring the light like electric syrup.
“That was wonderful!” Reaching out, she let her right hand stroke the famulus from head to tail. The body-length squid performed a delighted roll.
“That was interesting,” Oxothyr admitted from nearby, “and not a little flattering.” He moved closer. “Try this, changeling Irina.”
Chanting sonorously, Oxothyr expelled a flush of ink that was considerably greater in volume than the bubbles emitted by his assistant. So completely did it swaddle her in a bath of lambent colors that for a panicky moment she could neither see nor breathe. As she kicked and flailed at the smothering cloud of dazzling fluid it dissipated rapidly.
But—the enchanted shimmering light did not.
Looking first at her outstretched arms and then down at herself, she let out a little gasp. Beneath her skin small beads of blue-green luminescence now burned with a cold chemical light. The glow marched down her arms and legs, clung to the fins on her calves and the webbing between her fingers and toes. A more intense hue flared from the tips of each strand of her hair, as if her floating tresses had been transformed into a headful of blue-infused fiber optics. Red highlights flared from the tips of her fingers, ears, and locales concealed by her increasingly threadbare bathing suit.
Glint inspected her thoughtfully before finally pronouncing judgment. “Now this is the kind of magic I can appreciate! Irina-changeling, you’ve become beautiful. The mage has made you half-manyarm.” He pivoted in the water. “Come with me. This is something that needs to be shared with my cousins.”
Overcome by what she had become, Irina peered down at her ensorcelled bioluminescent self. “You really like it?”
“Take it from me,” the cuttlefish assured her, “you will have the squid tying their arms in knots.”
As they swam off to share Oxothyr’s entertaining morsel of magicking with others of his kind and a seemingly dismissive Chachel left to take his rest, a figure that had been hovering in the darkness now came forward. Its expression was hard, its voice tart, its attitude demanding.
“Why did you do that for her?” Spear in hand, Poylee hovered at a close but respectful distance from the shaman.
“Because she asked.” Arms coiled and rippled around the shaman’s body.
“Well, I’m asking also.” Holding her spear perpendicular to the rocky ground, which at this depth was largely devoid of coral, Poylee readied herself to receive a shower of light.
“There is no need.” Backing away, Oxothyr began the process of squeezing himself into the fissure in the rocks he had chosen for his bed. Despite his size, having no bones allowed him to fit into a hole much smaller than seemed possible. “The inner glow that radiates from you already singles you out as special, Poylee, and lights up the area around you. Good-night.” Folding his arms in front of him and changing their color and pattern to perfectly mimic the surrounding stone, the shaman effectively disappeared into his surroundings. Just like magic.
Poylee mulled pressing the matter, decided against it. More than a little conflicted, she swam slowly off to rejoin the other members of the party. She was not entirely sure what had just transpired, but the more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that she had just been rebuffed with a compliment.
— XV —
Irina suspected that her body’s spectacular subcutaneous shimmering would not last, but while it did, she intended to fully enjoy it. Beyond Oxothyr’s dexterous conscription of what she chose to think of as enchanted luciferase, her newfound glow extended to her spirit as well as her skin. Able now to see with reasonable clarity everything within her immediate vicinity, her fear of the near-darkness began to recede.
If there was a drawback to her altered state of individual luminosity, it was that it threatened to attract the attention not only of her fellow travelers but of numerous dark zone lifeforms. Though surrounded and watched over by the other members of the group, she remained wary. As a diver she had never been so deep. But she had seen pictures of what lived in the depths of her own seas. If similarities with Oshenerth
held true, then out in the darkness nightmares dwelled.
Confirming both her suspicions and her fears, the following day one such horror approached to within arm’s length. It had a bloated, skeletal body with nearly transparent skin stretched over thin bones. Filled with long, needle-like teeth, the jaws could open the full width of the body, allowing the fiendish predator to swallow prey even larger than as itself. A bright blue glowing lure dancing at the end of a worm-like appendage protruding from its skull. It halted close to Irina’s face, surveyed this strange potential meal that was too large to fit into even its expansive mouth (for which the potential meal was most thankful), and then departed, dashing away with a speed that belied its stocky build. Its indifference was not surprising.
The monster was only a couple of inches long.
Though their appearance was stupendously fearsome, most of the ogres of the deep were small, like the inquisitive anglerfish she had just confronted. But not all were so harmless. She remained alert, monitoring her companions for any sign that something dangerous and larger than her hand might be in the vicinity. Despite the internal glow Oxothyr had bestowed on her she could still see only a short distance into the darkness.
The mersons did better. Somewhere out front, his path lit only by a few small bioluminescent eels fastened like bracelets around his wrists, ankles, and neck, Chachel was swimming point. The hunter was incredibly brave and must have nerves of steel, she thought. Or else he was just crazy, like so many claimed. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
Where they paused one day for a midday meal, there was no greenery to be found. At this depth, in the absence of light, photosynthesis could not take place and plants could not grow. Deep-sea corals were primarily black and red. Sitting beneath an overhanging charcoal-gray branch coral as tall as a building, chewing and swallowing pieces of fresh fish and rubbery non-soluble strips of a particularly tasty beche-de-mer, she marveled at the untouched coral growth. Merson women adorned themselves with jewelry fashioned from such coral together with shells and found gemstones and thought little of it. Back home, a single such coral “tree” would be worth—she could not put a price on it.
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