Oshenerth

by Alan Dean Foster

  Chachel remained defiant. “Our people have been hardened by travel and by battle. There is no spralaker patrol we could not defeat.”

  Oxothyr was as patient with his explanations as the hunter was keen with his objections. “I do not disagree with your assessment of our fighting ability. Any such success, though, would be conditional upon the length of time required to achieve it. A patrol encountered need only send out a single messenger to request assistance. If we could not defeat our adversaries speedily, we would run the very real risk of being set upon by hastily summoned spralaker reinforcements. Remember that we speak now of advancing armies. This is not Siriswirll.”

  As an ordinary (if marginal) citizen of Sandrift, Chachel could think of several additional objections to the shaman’s reasoning. As a highly experienced hunter, he could not. Grudgingly, he conceded the octopod’s point.

  “Then we stay and fight!” Jorosab sounded vindicated.

  “Only as long as we must,” Oxothyr explained. “The instant I think we can obtain an answer from the Tornal as to the possible whereabouts of the Deep Oracle, we will leave—even if we have to fight our way out. As I said, both of your positions in this matter are valid.”

  He hoped his response had satisfied their contradictory concerns. More importantly, he had maintained peace within the group.

  Drifting off to one side, Irina had looked on in silence while paying close attention to the debate. The surrounding intermittent light served to concentrate one’s attention and senses wonderfully well. Though she thought she had grown used to the all-pervasive deep-sea gloom, she found herself having to glance down often at the reassuring bioluminescent radiance of the metropolis below. Many of the intense points of blue, green, and red light were in motion as Benthicalia’s inhabitants scurried and swam to and fro to prepare the defense of the city. Viewing the fever of activity from above was akin to watching clusters of stars caught in a whirlpool.

  The more she drifted in the pale organic luminosity and the more she thought about Chachel’s objections over staying to aid in the defense of the city, the more she felt herself out of place. High up in the sun-kissed reefs where she was surrounded by gaudy sea life, where everywhere she looked there was a new life form, a new wonder, a new delight, it was easier to come to terms with her mysteriously altered existence. In contrast, and despite the undeniable attractions Benthicalia offered, down in the dark depths the alienness of her changed surroundings pressed in much closer, constricting her thoughts and challenging her perceptions.

  She missed her former life. She missed her friends, ordinary everyday entertainment, familiar food, stress-free socializing. She missed going to work in the morning, even though it meant day after day of peering into other peoples’ mouths. She missed knowing what was going on in her world even though there was more than enough happening in this one to occupy anyone’s mind.

  Missing all that, she wondered if she herself was missed.

  Why couldn’t she have been offered a choice? Why had fate and the sea decided to pick on her? What had she done to so offend Providence that it had caused her to be dragged down beneath the surface to dwell among touchy water-breathing humanoids and frequently inscrutable cephalopods?

  Then she remembered that the alternative would probably have been drowning or death from starvation and exposure. Viewed in that light her present circumstances, an incipient war notwithstanding, seemed less of an imposition.

  Oxothyr was pointing in her direction. Following the shaman’s gestures, Chachel and Jorosab had also turned toward her. Drifting near the hunter, Poylee favored Irina with the usual half-loathing, half-bemused expression she reserved especially for the changeling from the void.

  “What do you think, Irina?” the manyarm mage asked her.

  The unexpected and unprecedented request for her opinion left her more than a little startled. “What? I’m not sure I …”

  “The shaman wants to know what you think we should do.” Poylee interrupted impatiently, as though explaining to a child. “Not that I understand why he should care, but it seems that he does.”

  Irina considered. Maybe Oxothyr thought that because of her alien origins she might bring some unexpected insight to the quandary. Maybe he felt she could access information beyond their ken. Perhaps he hoped she might offer a solution neither he nor any of the rest of them could see. If so, the shaman was bound to find her response disappointing.

  “I haven’t got a clue,” she finally declared. Though she was addressing herself to Oxothyr, all heard.

  “That’s just what I’ve been saying all along.” Having delivered herself of that opinion Poylee inverted herself, her feet pointing surfaceward, and dove toward the city. Jorosab followed on her heels.

  Chachel held back long enough to swim up to Irina. Unlike Poylee his expression was impossible to read, being as it was merely one of many variations of his entrenched stoicism.

  “You really have no suggestions as to how we, as visitors to this place, should proceed?” Stolid though his tone was, he could not entirely keep his disappointment from showing.

  She shook her head. “Despite what some people may choose to believe, I don’t have any mystical powers, Chachel. To foresee, or predict, or anything else. If I did, do you think I’d have let myself lapse into the condition I was in when you and Glint found me?”

  He nodded appreciatively. “At least you are honest. Most would try to boast, or at least to demur in hopes of elevating their standing in the eyes of their companions. I commend you on your candor.” With that he turned and, replicating Poylee’s dive and accompanied by Glint, headed back down toward the lights of the city.

  She watched him depart, wondering as she did so why she might wish for him to compliment something more intimate and less esoteric than her integrity. The light touch of a tentacle broke her contemplation and made her turn.

  All hypnotically weaving arms and pulsing bioluminescence, Oxothyr had come up behind her. Glowing green and lined with bright blue spots, Sathi and Tythe flanked the shaman like patrol boats escorting a cruiser.

  “I did not mean for my question to make you uncomfortable, Irina-changeling.” Uncoiling to its full length in front of her, another arm gestured downward. “As their experience to such phenomena as yourself is limited, so inevitably must be their responses.”

  “It’s all right, shaman.” She shrugged. “I’m getting used to it. I just wonder why they think I might be able to do something special when I couldn’t prevent myself from nearly dying before I was brought to Sandrift.”

  “I don’t think they believe you can do something,” he replied softly. “I think it is their hope.” Great round, black-gold eyes regarded her in the near-darkness. “As it is mine, for all that I know better.”

  “Such hopes are misplaced,” she informed him without hesitation. “I’m only a person, like Poylee or like yourself.” A slight smile creased her face as the two famuli giggled. “Well, maybe not exactly like yourself.”

  “But you are not like anyone else, Irina-changeling. You are only like you. As are we all.” He sighed, expelling a flow of slightly warmer water and just the tiniest splotch of phosphorescent ink by way of punctuation. “Come. Time contracts, and as the spralaker armies draw near the open water even here becomes a less friendly venue for casual banter.” He and the two famuli started downward, swimming backward with deliberate slowness so that she could keep up.

  “The spralakers,” she ventured as she joined them. “They don’t really have a chance of conquering Benthicalia, do they?”

  “We don’t know their full strength,” Oxothyr replied. “We do not know who leads them or what skills they might possess. In the realworld, everything is possible. Merely because one objects to tragedy does not mean it will not occur. Benthicalia’s defenses appear strong, and its people have the leadership of the Tornal. No matter the spralaker numbers or capabilities, they will not find this city as easy to capture as an isolated bommie defended by
a couple of manyarms and a few bewildered fish.”

  They were nearly back in the city when she thought to ask, “Do they fight on behalf of this singular coldness you’ve spoken of, Oxothyr? Is that what these unusual spralaker incursions are all about?”

  “I wish I knew, Irina-changeling. It is one of many things I wish I knew.” Oxothyr did not have a brow to furrow, but the highly flexible skin above his eyes crinkled. “I cannot say if there is a connection between this lesser peril and the greater one I continue to sense.” He turned a vivid pink spotted with yellow. “Be so good as to allow me enough room in which to contemplate one apocalypse at a time, please.”

  “Yes,” piped up Tythe. “Your presence and your constant questions crowd out important thoughts in the Master’s mind!”

  Sweeping outward, a tentacle whacked the squid between head and mantle, sending the much smaller cephalopod spinning through the water like a misguided torpedo. “I can manage my own intellectual luggage, thank you, famulus.”

  The squid’s arms drooped low as he regained control and leveled out. “I apologize, Master. My concern was, as always, for your welfare.”

  “Your concern is recognized. Be conscious of your position, lest I tender it to another.” Looking back at Irina, who was swimming downward beside him, he added almost casually, “Would you possibly be open to such an offer? If you remain among us you must one day pick a profession.”

  The bubbles that emerged from her throat carried her laughter upward. “I’m pretty good with all the standard dental tools, and I can spot problem areas almost as well as the several dentists I worked for, but I’m afraid I don’t have any aptitude for magic.”

  “How,” the eight-armed, slack-bodied shaman asked, cocking one vertically pupiled eye in her direction, “do you know—changeling?”

  O O O

  Had she not already seen for herself what the spralakers were capable of, Irina would not have believed them able to pose a danger to a city as large and resourceful as Benthicalia. The best of the hardshells could swim but poorly, leaving them always at the mercy of attack from above. Most could only walk, and therefore only attack, sideways. Those crustaceans who could advance in a straightforward manner, such as the caridae and nephropidae, suffered from their own deficiencies. With the exception of Sajjabax’s notably ferocious family, the majority of caridae were more like Gubujul—fragile and easily dispatched. In contrast, the powerful nephropidae tended to be slow-moving as well as slow-witted.

  It was left to exceptional individuals such as Gubujul and his Marshals to promulgate strategy, and to the mid-level spralaker officers to maintain control over the surging mass of lesser-minded soldiers. Such troops were brave to the point of recklessness, but they needed constant guidance.

  Irina knew nothing of the Paramount Advisor and his general staff as she hovered with her companions above the city’s North Wall and gazed out at what appeared to be a lake of muttering fire. The light came from the emanations of the tens of thousands of bioluminescent salps, corals, fish, and other growths and creatures that the first spralaker army had suborned for its use. Stretching off into the distant dark, it was a sweeping glow that faded only with distance. In contrast, the hair-raising skitter-scratch that echoed across the intervening plain arose from the chattering of thousands of spralaker throats. Passing through water far more lucidly than it ever could through air, it was clearly audible throughout the city.

  “There are an awful lot of them,” she whispered worriedly. “More than at Siriswirll.”

  “Far more.”

  Hanging beside her, Chachel used one hand to make a minor adjustment to his prosthetic right leg even as the other gripped a spear tightly. Three other bone shafts, each equally as long and deadly as the one he held, were slung in a scabbard across his back. Nearby, Poylee clutched her own weapons while Glint brandished a pair of short, powerful bows. The cuttlefish bore four small arrow quivers; one each strapped to his dorsal side, the ventral, left and right. A few dozen cuttlefish and squid so armed could unleash hundreds of short bone or urchin shafts at once even while maneuvering nimbly through the water. No spralaker could match their agility or rate of firepower. On the other hand, an arrow had to hit just the right spot to best a hardshell’s natural armor.

  The spear Irina held loosely in her right hand and the short, curved bone sword strapped to her waist felt less foreign now after the battle at Siriswirll. Despite the newfound skill with which they had been employed, in close quarters she would still rely on the knife from her own world, with its titanium blade and composite handle.

  Hopefully she would not be called upon to use any of them. Though Oxothyr and Jorosab had volunteered their group to the defense of the East Wall, their offer had been refused. As guests and non-residents, they were not obligated to participate in the defense of the city. It was enough that they were willing to contribute to the reserve forces.

  She continued to gaze out at the seemingly endless flickering mass of blue and green light. “I asked Oxothyr, but what do you think, Chachel? Do you believe they can take the city?”

  The hunter grunted. “The wall here is old but high and well-built. It is not a temporary defensive structure like the one that was put up by the citizens of Siriswirll.” He paused. “But I have never seen or heard of so many spralakers in one place. And this that we are facing is only one of two such armies. The other, we have been told by our scouts, will likely be attacking the lower terraces. The city must therefore defend itself on two fronts, north and west, much like a hunter caught between circling sharks.” Turning in the water, his features thrown into relief by the city light from behind and below, he met her gaze evenly.

  “I honestly cannot speak to the eventual outcome, Irina. I don’t know enough about formal military tactics. I know how to cope with a school of makos, or engage in formal duel with a billfish, but military matters of this scope are outside my experience.” He gestured with his spear. “There is a difference between a hunter and a soldier.”

  “I’m neither one,” she murmured softly. “My trade involves healing, not destroying.”

  Kicking once, he crossed the rest of the way to her. His voice lost some of its habitual hardness. “You did well at Siriswirll. I saw you thrust.”

  She looked over at him. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought. I was fighting oversized prawns and crabs—spralakers—and not people. I don’t know if I could kill a merson, for example.” Suddenly uncomfortably aware of his proximity she glanced to one side, where Glint was looking on patiently and, uncharacteristically, in silence. “And I don’t know if I can ever eat calamari again.”

  “What’s ‘calamari’?” the cuttlefish asked curiously.

  “Not you,” she was able to explain truthfully. “Right now I don’t want to go there.” She turned back to Chachel. “I’m helping Oxothyr because he’s helping me.”

  The hunter nodded somberly, his chin almost touching hers. She was breathing faster. “Poor, honest changeling,” he murmured gently. “Nothing more could be expected of you.” Pivoting in the water, he backed off as he returned his attention to the looming spralaker horde. She swallowed. Something had just happened, and she wasn’t sure what.

  “They’ll be coming soon,” he announced in his familiar curt tone. “Don’t forget—with the sidewalkers, aim your spear for the open mouth and your knife for the eyes. Watch always the sideways swing of the main claws.”

  “I—I’ll remember,” she assured him. She felt she had to say something else. Something more. Keeping her voice low, she added, “Whatever happens, Chachel, I want to thank you and Glint again for everything you’ve done for me. And no matter the outcome, I want you to know that I don’t think—I don’t think that you’re a hostile, antisocial recluse.”

  He looked back at her. She thought he might have smiled, albeit briefly, but she could not be certain.

  “Ah, Irina-changeling, that’s where you’re wrong.”

  Kicking forcefully, he
moved farther away from her and toward Glint. Using every one of his ten arms, the cuttlefish had begun notching arrows simultaneously into both bows. Looking on, she considered Chachel’s words in light of his actions, seeking contradiction. Seeking, and hoping for it.

  Finding it, and possibly other revelations, would have to wait until later.

  Uttered in unison by ten thousand inhuman throats, a great grating, nerve-tingling ululation had arisen in the north.

  The spralakers were coming.

  — XX —

  There seemed no end to them.

  Whether the marching masses ended at the limits of her vision or extended onward all the way to the distant reaches of the lower reefs Irina could not tell. Then the first lines of foe, all spears and knives and scimitar-like claws, were assailing the great outer wall of the city and reality overcame speculation.

  Just as it had been at Siriswirll, the collective assault bore only passing resemblance to an attack on land. Projectiles shot or thrown through water were soon slowed by the medium that surrounded them, though short-range thrusts and heaves were sufficiently robust to frequently find their mark. Unlike a human army, the spralaker horde had no need of scaling ladders to ascend the wall. Powerful gripping legs allowed the weakest of them to commence the vertical ascent under their own power, their climbing abilities putting to shame the most accomplished human mountaineers.

  Their ease of ascent was countered by defenders who could, essentially, fly. Swimming at high speed, troops of mersons and manyarms soared above the advancing hard-shelled host, diving upon them to attack with spears and arrows. Teams consisting of four mersons apiece carried nets each of which supported a single large, heavy rock. Dropped from a safe height, each massive stone could crush the protective shells of one or more spralakers below. With so many massed targets to choose from, the stone-droppers did not even have to aim.